Chrysostom
Beloved of All
You have offered thanks to Jesus for keeping her safe and healthy through the surgery. This is fitting, for He is the true Physician who not only quenches a fever but restores perfect health in an instant, a thing no earthly skill can accomplish. Rejoice, therefore, with a joy made keener because her recovery came perhaps against expectation, just as Paul rejoiced to see Epaphroditus restored. Yet I urge you: do not let this mercy become an occasion for carelessness.
This place is a spiritual surgery, where the wounds we receive outside may be healed, not where we gather new ones. If Christ has been swift to heal the body, how much more ready is He to mend the soul if you lay it before Him? Do not judge by appearances, esteeming physical health as the whole gift. The health He gives is whole and complete; He makes a man sound in every part.
So let this outward healing be a spur to inward fervor. You have received a talent, this very life and recovery, use it for the common good. No one is so poor that he cannot serve, as Peter and John, unlearned though they were, attained heaven by zeal for others. Go, then, giving thanks not only in word but in deed: live for her soul’s health as much as for her body’s, and together press on toward that eternal life where no surgery is needed.
This place is a spiritual surgery, where the wounds we receive outside may be healed, not where we gather new ones. If Christ has been swift to heal the body, how much more ready is He to mend the soul if you lay it before Him? Do not judge by appearances, esteeming physical health as the whole gift. The health He gives is whole and complete; He makes a man sound in every part.
So let this outward healing be a spur to inward fervor. You have received a talent, this very life and recovery, use it for the common good. No one is so poor that he cannot serve, as Peter and John, unlearned though they were, attained heaven by zeal for others. Go, then, giving thanks not only in word but in deed: live for her soul’s health as much as for her body’s, and together press on toward that eternal life where no surgery is needed.
