Christ cares and heals both our body and soul

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THAT’S what we can learn from that gospel episode about some people presenting a paralytic to Christ, asking for healing. (cfr. Mt 9,1-8) Taking note of their faith in him, Christ did not delay in responding to their plea. But instead of curing the body immediately, Christ cured first the soul by saying: “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.”

Of course, the usual villains took issue with what Christ did, accusing him of blasphemy. That’s when Christ, to show his divine authority, asked the paralytic to stand up and walk. And when the paralytic managed to stand up and walk, the crowd was completely left awe-struck and could not help but glorify God.

In this moment, Christ wanted to show that reconciling the soul is a more profound healing than repairing the body, that spiritual restoration—forgiveness—is the ultimate healing. As a corollary, he wanted to show that it is sin that is the deepest paralysis, making forgiveness the most necessary healing. He wanted to make it clear that healing the inner person is paramount, and that a restored soul is greater than a cured body.

Christ, of course, is also interested in giving our body its ideal condition. And we should also be. But we should make sure that our concern for the health of our body, which can make use of whatever human means are available, should never compromise our complete reliance first on God’s grace and mercy.

We have to remember that our body cannot achieve its distinction as being human if it is not animated by our spiritual soul that in turn should channel the very spirit of God. Without the spirit of God, our body would not be much different from the body of an animal.

Our body and soul should be properly united. This is how the Catechism describes this unity: “The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the ‘form’ of the body, i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.” (CCC 365)

This clarification is significant for it would show us that somehow the condition of the body is determined to some extent by the condition of the soul, and vice-versa. There is some kind of correlation between the two, though not in a strictly one-to-one mathematical kind of correlation.

To put it bluntly, we cannot say that just because one has an ugly face or a frail body, he too has an ugly soul or a weak soul. That is absolutely foul. In the lives of saints and holy men and women, we can see a beautiful soul in ugly faces and sickly bodies.

In fact, we have these prophetic words from the Book of Isaiah that described the future Christ: “He had no stately form or majesty to attract us, no beauty that we should desire him.” (53,2)

So, we have to be careful with making judgments based on looks alone and other external things. Just the same, we have to say that when the body is sick, especially of the mental, emotional, psychological kind, we cannot say that the illness is due exclusively to some organic malfunction. The condition of the soul has something to do with it also.

The main point to learn here is that the unity of our body and soul should have Christ as its living principle.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com