Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - Prayerful Healing

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 02.21.22 | Aux. Bishop R. Barron

[MurphsLaw]

SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

MARK 9:14-29

Friends, today in the Gospel, Jesus demonstrates the power of the prayer of faith. Have you noticed how Jesus, time and again, says to people before working a miracle,
“Do you believe I can do this?”
Once, Matthew tells us, Jesus was unable to perform many miracles because he was met with so little faith among the people.

Lots of people today, especially in the healing ministry, seem able to reproduce what Jesus did, precisely because of the purity of their faith.
Is part of our problem simply a lack of faith?
We allow our skepticism to get the better of us; we’re just a little embarrassed by asking God for things, or we’re convinced that he is a distant power only vaguely connected to our lives.

Can you hear the simple faith in the opening line of Jesus’ great prayer: “Abba in heaven ”? Another astonishing line of Jesus in this regard is this:
“So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
Even before you receive it, believe that it is yours and give thanks for it, blithely confident that you will receive it.

[MurphsLaw]

+++As Jesus came down from the mountain with Peter,
James, John
and approached the other disciples,
they saw a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them.
Immediately on seeing him,
the whole crowd was utterly amazed.
They ran up to him and greeted him.
He asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?”
Someone from the crowd answered him,
“Teacher, I have brought to you my son possessed by a mute spirit.
Wherever it seizes him, it throws him down;
he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid.
I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they were unable
to do so.”
He said to them in reply,
“O faithless generation, how long will I be with you?
How long will I endure you? Bring him to me.”
They brought the boy to him.
And when he saw him,
the spirit immediately threw the boy into convulsions.
As he fell to the ground, he began to roll around
and foam at the mouth.
Then he questioned his father,
“How long has this been happening to him?”
He replied, “Since childhood.
It has often thrown him into fire and into water to kill him.
But if you can do anything,
have compassion on us and help us.”
Jesus said to him,
“‘If you can!’ Everything is possible to one who has faith.”
Then the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe, help my unbelief!”
Jesus, on seeing a crowd rapidly gathering,
rebuked the unclean spirit and said to it,
“Mute and deaf spirit, I command you:
come out of him and never enter him again!”
Shouting and throwing the boy into convulsions, it came out.
He became like a corpse, which caused many to say,
“He is dead!”
But Jesus took him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up.
When he entered the house, his disciples asked him in private,
“Why could we not drive the spirit out?”
He said to them,
“This kind can only come out through prayer.”+++

[ebb tide]

Once, Matthew tells us, Jesus was unable to perform many miracles because he was met with so little faith among the people.

Jesus Christ not being able to perform miracles is a heresy. Not surprising coming from Bobby Barron. And Barron's hero, Jorge the Humble, doesn't believe in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. He thinks it was a perfect example of "sharing", nothing more.