Good News

As I was heading out of church, I knew.

I am healed.

It didn’t come like a bolt out of the blue or a disembodied voice, or like some televangelist with his palm on my forehead saying the words.  I just knew.  After Mass and some friendly conversations, somewhere between my mental genuflection before the Tabernacle and crossing the threshold out into the world, my worries and prayers concerning whether or not I have cancer had an answer – I am healed.

And I was filled with a light, clear brightness like a many colored stained-glass window radiant with sunlight.  I don’t want to say that this was merely a pleasant feeling, for it was more of a deep-down knowledge.  Later, as I prayed the Glorious Mysteries of the Holy Rosary at home, I again experienced the awareness and was brought to tears of joy.

Even when I thought about how healing has different meanings, that this knowledge of mine might not mean that my uterine fibroids are benign, I still had a sense of peace.  I knew that I was healed and that meant something.  Maybe it meant that I was healed of my fears and my wariness of hope.  Maybe it meant that I would have a peaceful, joyful, and impactful transition into the next life.  I didn’t know for certain.  I just knew that I was healed.

For all of you who are friends, who have been regular readers and have followed my posts about the rapidly growing fibroids, for all of you who have expressed kind concern and sent up loving prayers, I won’t keep you in suspense any longer…

My uterine fibroids aren’t cancerous.

Hallelujah!

God be praised!  Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Although I wasn’t scheduled to have my ultrasound until next week, I got an earlier appointment.  Last week, I had started a cough with some chest congestion – though not very much at all, thank God.  I knew that I could have started a cold or that it was an annoying evolution of my allergies – but I worried.  (It’s sadly plain to me that I am a worrier.)  The anxiety was pretty bad, it was making me feel sick.  I thought that, maybe, I did have cancer and it had already metastasized (the rapid growth started at least six months ago) and was moving into my lungs.  Yes, I admit it, even though I feel a little embarrassed to share that now.  I shouldn’t feel embarrassed, though, because people have terrible suffering like that happen to them every day.  There’s no reason for me to be any different.  (This does raise the question, Why not me? which I’ll reflect upon in a later post, God willing.)

Long story short, my parents encouraged me to call the gynecologist and get an earlier ultrasound, as one more week wouldn’t make a difference in showing whether the tumors were benign (not growing or even shrinking) or malignant (still growing at a fast pace).  After Sunday’s experience, however, I didn’t feel the same anxiety at all.  I wasn’t anxious.  I was healed.  Knowing myself, however, I knew that it wouldn’t take much for me to lose the sense of peace and worry again.  (How God puts up with me I don’t know.)  Also, the thought that my parents might be worried, too, did come to mind.  So, I went for an earlier ultrasound and received the good news.

The Good News

That Sunday after Mass, when I knew that I was healed, began to open up my heart and mind to the intent of the Liturgy, the meaning of Salvation, and the reason for the Gospel.  I started thinking that everyone should leave the church knowing that they are healed.  I should have been experiencing this awareness all along because, all along, I have been healed.  I am being healed.  I am healed.  We all are.  For that is the Good News of the Gospel – Christ Jesus came to bring us forgiveness of our sinful faults and failings and reconciliation with our Creator and all Creation: the merciful fruit of God’s saving love.

The Apostles essentially went around Jerusalem and throughout the whole world proclaiming, “You are healed!  You are healed!”  And those who believed them, those who came to Jesus their Healer, their Savior, and accepted his yoke of healing with faithful knowledge that they were healed, lived their earthly lives with heavenly peace, proclaiming the good news to others, and passing confidently and joyfully into God’s eternal embrace.  This is the Good News.

This is the Good News proclaimed to us every Sunday.

Through the Paschal Mystery, sanctifying grace is available to all, enabling us mere humans to participate in the divine life.  Being both human and divine, Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, re-presented in the Eucharistic liturgy, pours out abundant grace to us in the ultimate healing power of Divine Mercy and Love.  Baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, we are born anew from above – we are new creations living supernaturally.  All of the Sacraments offer us actual grace and, with it, the healing power of God directly into our lives here and now.

And we are healed.

We are healed!

Too often, especially when we are troubled by a sorrow or suffering… we don’t even know it.

Lord, have mercy on me..

© 2017 Christina Chase

Photo credit: The Radiance of the Holy Spirit, © 2017 Dan Chase