Healing

This morning as I was making breakfast for the kids, I was thinking about my work at the hospital. In the critical care unit where I work, we are very good at helping people to survive life-threatening situations. For example, if someone is in respiratory distress, we can give them steroids to reduce inflammation and open up the airways; we can give them diuretics if there is fluid in the lungs; we give supplemental oxygen using various methods, and we can even place them on a mechanical ventilator which can literally do the work of breathing.

However, all of this “intensive care” only helps the patient survive the immediate crisis. The underlying pathology—the asthma or emphysema causing the airways to constrict, the failing heart causing fluid to back up into the lungs, or an infection causing the patient to go into septic shock—still exists.

Once we have a patient stabilized, sometimes we can treat the underlying disease or injury. Some diseases can be managed with diet and exercise, and by a doctor prescribing the correct medications; a skilled physician can remove a tumor or perform bypass surgery on an occluded blood vessel; antibiotic drugs can fight off infectious organisms; but if any healing occurs, it is done by the body itself.

A few years ago, I was taking a class for an advanced certification, and on this particular day we were studying the nervous system. As the instructor was explaining the various control and feedback and alternate pathways, I was impressed with what an incredible and complex design our human bodies are. I kept thinking to myself, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made! You are fearfully and wonderfully made!”

“I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works! My very self you knew;
How precious to me are your designs, O God; how vast the sum of them!
Were I to count, they would outnumber the sands; to finish, I would need eternity.”
--Psalms 139: 14, 17, 18

After breakfast this morning, I dropped little Isabella off at her preschool, and I ran into an old friend who is currently fighting cancer, and we chatted for a few minutes. I was reminded that just yesterday, I was reading some letters written by another friend who is also fighting cancer: she described her uncertainty and emotions of coming to grips with her unexpected battle. And I keep in my heart another friend: she lives in Louisiana and also is battling cancer—together with some other friends, we once climbed a mountain together, a mountain with a cross on top.

And then at Mass this morning, I learned that today is the Feast of Saint Luke. This is incredible because Luke was a physician, a medical doctor. He was also a disciple of Jesus, tradition says one of the seventy-two, and as the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, he understood the healing power of the Word of God.

Now, as I am writing these thoughts, I am remembering friends and loved ones who have lost the battle with cancer: my Uncle Randy who died over twenty years ago from esophageal cancer; Linda Martin, a coworker and dedicated ICU nurse; and Gerri, one of my son Johnny’s preschool teachers.

“A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.
Lord, you have been our refuge through all generations. Before the mountains were born, the earth and the world brought forth, from eternity to eternity you are God. A thousand years in your eyes are merely a yesterday, But humans you return to dust, saying, "Return, you mortals!" Before a watch passes in the night, you have brought them to their end; they disappear like sleep at dawn; they are like grass that dies. It sprouts green in the morning; by evening it is dry and withered… Our life ebbs away… our years end like a sigh. Seventy is the sum of our years, or eighty, if we are strong; Most of them are sorrow and toil; they pass quickly, we are all but gone…”
--Psalms 90: 1-6, 9 and 10

This does not cause me sorrow or despair. Rather it inspires me! Don’t get me wrong—I have no death wish. Life is a precious gift! God gives life every chance, and He expects us to do the same. But in the eternal view I am inspired in knowing that every day is win-win; every day is a gift! I am inspired to make my life count. Indeed, the Psalmist continues:
“Teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart… Fill us at daybreak with your love, that all our days we may sing for joy… Show your deeds to your servants, your glory to their children. May the favor of the Lord our God be ours. Prosper the work of our hands! Prosper the work of our hands!”
Psalms 90: 12, 14, 16, 17

And in today’s Gospel reading, Saint Luke recounts Our Lord’s instructions to the seventy-two disciples: Jesus tells them to heal the sick, and tell them:
“The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.”
--Luke 10: 9

Prosper the work of our hands, Lord! Prosper the work of our hands!
Saint Luke, pray for us!