Thee alone I follow, Lord Jesus, Who heals my wounds. For what shall separate me from the love of God, which is in Thee? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine? I am held fast as though by nails, and fettered by the bonds of charity. Remove from me, O Lord Jesus, with Thy potent sword, the corruption of my sins. Secure me in the bonds of Thy love; cut away what is corrupt in me. Come quickly and make an end of my many, my hidden and secret afflictions. Open the wound lest the evil humor spread. With Thy new washing, cleanse in me all that is stained. Hear me, you earthly men, who in your sins bring forth drunken thoughts: I have found a Physician. He dwells in Heaven and distributes His healing on earth. He alone can heal my pains Who Himself has none. He alone Who knows what is hidden can take away the grief of my heart, the fear of my soul: Jesus Christ. Christ is grace! Christ is life! Christ is Resurrection! Amen.
We ask God, who is good, to do what we wish He would do. Sometimes He does and those miracles are brilliant blessings. I have experienced a few, even of healing, in my own life. Often things go as God designed the cosmos to go, because this is better. God is not whimsical and the order, pattern, and laws of Nature, ideas in His eternal Mind, are good for the whole. God can do anything that is just, but God will not do anything that is not optimum. He has all of eternity to bring justice to each individual and He will. We always will find healing, mercy, and grace in God if we cry out to Him.*
We wish God was Jeeves, Bunter, or some other cosmic butler doing what is best for us now, leaving eternity out of it. As always, I am finding it hard to care for eternity when people I love are imperiled in the short term by a plague year. God knows that as well and in the person of Jesus Christ came and experienced our pain. He is speeding history to a resolution, but knows the pain of the present. No tear will be forgotten and every heart cry of any of God’s children will be heard.
That is hopeful and by faith, hope made substantial through reason and experience, I love God. No other possible being has the knowledge, the power, the time, and the will to make all things good, true, and beautiful.
What binds me to God even in these hard times is love! I am fettered by the bonds of charity. These are sweet bonds indeed. Having started badly in life, I am glad that a loving doctor has had mercy on me in healing my soul. This healing was, is, and will come again. In times of physical sickness, Ambrose is reminding us that none of us “win” at physical life. This life must end and though we are thankful to the physicians and health care workers for all they do, they can only do so much. We are “mortal man doomed to die.” We pray for peace in our time and take joy in the Lord, but there is more to life than physical life.
There is another world: the metaphysical. May I be more loving, less judgmental, more given to acts of kindness. This is a Lenten season, liturgically and culturally, when we look for mercy and the coming Spring. We are sick, sometimes afraid, and could use help. The great Physician loves us and will make us well if we ask him. We pray for the inclination, the power, and even the grace to become not merely human, but divinely humane. We pray for mercy in our grief and fear. He who knows our grief and fear stands in solidarity with us and works skillfully and as quickly as He can to make us whole.
Thanks be to God.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In