Mark 6:53-56

Today the evangelist Mark tells us about the many people who brought the sick to Jesus so that they could be healed by faith.

In the villages, towns and countryside where Jesus and His disciples entered, people placed the sick lying on their mats in the marketplaces and begged Jesus that they might touch only the tassel on His cloak. And as many as touched it were healed.

There was an idea among the Jews that the promised Messiah would be someone like the great prophet Elijah and his disciple Elisha, through whom some sick were healed by faith. God the Father allowed the sick to be healed by faith in Jesus to reveal to the Jews that He was the promised Messiah.

Public health at that time and place was very precarious. The sick had no one to turn to. Medicine was limited, rulers did not care about the sick, and religious leaders considered the sick to be sinners punished by God.

The people who brought the sick to Jesus were like intercessors, like intermediaries, who believed in His power to heal and transmitted this faith to the sick.

Through the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, the Church continues the ministry of Jesus, visiting the sick, interceding for their physical and spiritual health and anointing them with holy oil. It is a sacrament that serves to forgive sins, in cases where the sick is unconscious and unable to confess.

Today we must be those people who bring the sick to Jesus, informing the priests so that they can administer the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, especially in cases of danger of death.

It is worth remembering that this sacrament does not replace medical care, which is highly recommended.

Local: Springfield, MA, EUA

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