Among them was a woman who had suffered from haemorrhages for twelve years; and in spite of long treatment by many doctors, on which she had spent all she had, there had been no improvement; on the contrary she had grown worse. She had heard what people were saying about Jesus; so she came up from behind in the crowd and touched his cloak; for she said to herself, "If I touch even his clothes, I shall be cured". And there and then the source of her haemorrhages dried up and she knew herself that she was cured of her trouble. At the same time Jesus, aware that power had gone out of him, turned round in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" His disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing upon you and yet you ask, Who touched me?" Meanwhile he was looking round to see who had done it. And the woman, trembling with fear when she grasped what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and told him the whole truth. He said to her, "My daughter, your faith has cured you. Go in peace, free for ever from this trouble." (Mark 5:25-34)
What is this faith that cured the woman with "an issue of blood" (in all probability from the womb, a complaint that involved legal impurity according to the statute laid down in Leviticus 15:25-7)? In the classical definition of Hebrews 11:1, faith is that which gives substance to our hopes, and makes us certain of realities we do not see. This faith is not simply a vacuous wish for the unattainable; on the contrary; it is an active quality that works towards the realization of that which is desired, even if it does appear beyond attainment in terms of reason. The practical basis of an active faith as compared with passive wishful thinking is openness to the creative potentiality of life itself. This is the sole act of will that is necessary to start the growth into the fullness of being that God has in store for us.
This faith that heals does not demand an uncomprehending acceptance of theories, nor does it submit to the domination of powerful people who purport to special knowledge or charismatic gifts: It therefore does not demand suspension of the critical faculty of the mind. In this respect, it is important to understand that any way of alleged spiritual development that emphasizes one function of the person to the detriment or exclusion of another is fundamentally aberrant, indeed heretical. Balance and order are the essential qualities of all healing work that stems from the Holy Spirit, whereas imbalance and disorder have their end in chaos and destruction. Faith opens us to the immeasurable fecundity of God's grace, and its end is the perfection of the personality that shows itself in service of a type that we associate with the work of Christ.
There is a world of difference therefore between faith and credulity. Faith is an open, self giving acceptance of an unknown, yet dimly glimpsed, purpose that guides the flow of the cosmos. Credulity is a sacrifice of the rational, critical faculty in order to follow blindly along a path directed by another person. The end of this path is bondage to the person who has led one or to the ideology that has captivated one's mind. Credulity is the price exacted by a human predator, of whom there are unfortunately representatives even in the world of healing, whereas faith is the mark of trust that is given as one follows the path that has been blazed by the saints of all the religious traditions; its end is a knowledge of God.
If we return to the healing episode that prefixed this chapter, we can consider the faith of the woman that led to her healing. She had for a long time placed her trust in the established methods of the medical orthodoxy of her time, but had, if anything, become worse on this treatment. She had heard of the remarkable healing powers attributed to the young teacher from Nazareth, but had been chary of revealing the nature of her disorder to those around her because of the legal impurity associated with it. And so she suddenly opened herself unconditionally to the healing power of God as made available in the person of Jesus. To do this she required not only complete openness and trust, but also the courage to act, to step forward and touch the clothing of Christ. From this simple account we see that faith is consummated in two acts: an act of self giving to God, however he may be conceived, and an act of commitment to follow the course his Spirit indicates.
When God hears our petitions, he does not automatically grant them, but if we offer ourselves, soul and body, as a living sacrifice before him, his Spirit will infuse us so fully that a change in our entire outlook is wrought. And this change penetrates to the very core of the personality, which is the soul, from which it proceeds to enliven and regenerate the mind, quieten and strengthen the emotions and heal the body. The healing is total, usually slow and progressive, but occasionally dramatically precipitate. On the whole, a slow, deliberate type of healing is ultimately more beneficial than a sudden, dramatic one. A sudden cure is liable to concentrate the whole attention on the body or the mind, depending on the nature of the illness. A slower return to health provides the sick person with more time to deliberate on his life's course, and to treat the healing he is receiving with sober reverence. That which comes to us far too easily seldom makes its impact permanently felt in the personality; after the initial rejoicing it tends to be taken for granted and forgotten. On the other hand, that which is accompanied by the sweat of the brow and the rugged toil of the hands acts as an agent of transfiguration of consciousness up to the level of caring shown by Christ himself. The healings wrought by Jesus were admittedly permanent - certainly there is no statement that any of those who were healed subsequently relapsed - but we must remember the nature of the person who performed the healing act. No one who came into contact with Jesus in a healing relationship could ever be as he was before. On the other hand, the outer healing was only the presage of a much greater, more important conversion that was slowly taking place inwardly.
When a person experiences conversion to Christ, his whole way of life changes. As St Paul writes, "When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world; the old order has gone and a new order has already begun" (2 Cor. 5:17). But that new order has to come to completion as the person's character is gradually cleansed of selfish desires, even the desire for his own life at the expense of another person. We know indeed that there is no greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13), but the practice of this supreme love that is also the final witness of a total healing comes late in our spiritual development. The early healings of the body and mind attested to in the ministry of Jesus are indeed sacraments, outer and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace, of the complete change to be brought about in the whole person, so that he is resurrected to the divine life of Christ. Therefore the early bodily healings are not to be seen as ends in themselves but as the beginning of a new way of life in the person who has received them. The end of the Christian way is resurrection. When we consider how slowly even his disciples came to know Jesus and understand what he taught them, how they turned from him when he needed their support most urgently, and how long was their spiritual apprenticeship before they were worthy to receive the full downpouring of the Holy Spirit, we can see that Christ himself works quietly in the soul of a believer. A dramatic healing is to be understood both as an indication of God's eternal presence among us and as a special grace of encouragement bestowed on the humble follower on the way to full spiritual maturity.
The barrier to that faith which is a prerequisite for healing is not, paradoxically enough, doubt. Indeed, a faith that is not heavily overshadowed by doubt lacks earthly reality; it is liable to founder on the hazardous rocks of credulity on the one hand or be drawn into a destructive vortex of fanaticism on the other. In Mark 9:14-29 we have a dramatic story of a boy possessed of an evil spirit that produced recurrent fits. The disciples were unable to exorcise the entity despite the power given to them by Jesus. Only he himself could perform this ministry of deliverance in this instance, so close was the destructive influence to the child. Only a person of supreme spirituality, one whose prayer and fasting (which typifies the ascetic life) brought him constantly close to God the Father, could deal with this demonic agency. But the most moving episode in this story is the frantic response of the boy's father to the statement of Jesus that everything is possible to one who has faith. "I have faith; help me where faith falls short." This is the faith that heals: a trust in the Almighty that is humble enough to know its own limitations, but nevertheless leads the person on in the obscure darkness where all judgement has to be suspended until the dawning of a new day. As one gropes in the shadows, so faith is given one until the light of fulfilment breaks through, and one's spiritual sight is clear and triumphant. The critical faculty now knows something that was previously hidden from its understanding: the mind as well as the heart and soul has been brought closer to divine reality. It should also be said that although modern medical science would immediately diagnose this child's complaint as epilepsy, a condition due to an aberrant neuronal discharge from the brain, it could still be possible that a malicious psychic influence was the trigger for the disordered activity of the brain in this particular case. We know too little about the interaction of body and mind through the brain to make any dogmatic statement about the matter.
The real barriers to a healing faith are arrogance and hostility. Arrogance is an aspect of a more basic sin, pride. This cannot yield its supremacy and domination to any person outside itself; it is in fact a denial of love, inasmuch as we love because God loved us first (1 John 4:19). The arrogant person puts himself out of reach of God's love, not because God ceases to love him but because he is not receptive to that divine love which moves the universe. Until the fall that inevitably follows pride, there can be no openness to God s healing power. Only then does humility appear; indeed, humility is the reverse side of the coin of faith. Humility receives God's love, and faith ventures out into the unknown in the power of that love. A variation of the theme of arrogance is demanding that healing should occur in a special way or believing that we deserve God's special providence because of our piety and work for his Kingdom. In the story of Elisha and Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5), humility and faith bring the powerful army commander to the prophet's door for healing of an unpleasant skin disease. But when Elisha simply sends him a message to wash seven times in the Jordan waters to become clean and healthy once more, he is furious. He expected the prophet to have made a show of spiritual power over him and to have invoked the name of God. He might indeed have forfeited his healing had not one of his own servants brought him back to his senses, bidding him perform the simple act that Elisha had prescribed. There are also some people whose very virtue stands in the way of healing, because they feel resentment that God should have treated them so badly. Until we move beyond all considerations of deserts and recompenses, and are open as a little child to God's grace, we will block the power of his Spirit in us.
God is not to be bribed; a person may in dire straits make a contract with God, promising certain works of charity and prayers provided that help arrives. Sometimes this agreement appears to work, but it is not due to God's partiality to that person. It is due to the person opening himself out to receive the Holy Spirit in faith. As his faith grows, so he will cease to relate to God on a basis of bargaining, but will instead attain greater communion with him at all times. The divine fellowship will be enough for him; all other benefits will fall into the background of his consideration. Even the righteous Job had to move from a concept of God as personal provider who has to be placated by suitable sacrifices, to one of a universal source of life who provides as much for the uncomprehending forms of nature as for the brilliance of mankind. Faith brings us to God, and good works follow in the wake of that relationship. The motivating force of those works is love, not fear or obligation, for no one who knows God can either fear him any longer, or feel obliged to obey him. Instead of any ulterior motive, there is self giving service in love to him and all he has created.
Hostility is an absolute barrier to the healing power of God. It seems ludicrous to ask for healing and at the same time reject it. But the human mind is not infrequently divided against itself and all life. When Jesus went to his home town accompanied by his disciples and began to teach in the synagogue on the Sabbath, the large congregation that heard him was amazed. They wondered where he acquired his store of wisdom and how he worked his miracles, for they knew him as a carpenter and they were intimately acquainted with his family, none of whom amounted to much in the local society. So they fell foul of him, and Jesus said to them, "A prophet will always be held in honour except in his own home town, and among his kinsmen and family." He could work no miracle there, except that he put his hands on a few sick people and healed them. He was taken aback by their want of faith (Mark 6:1-6). This lack of faith was an attitude of deliberate hostility to Jesus; the townsfolk were determined to cut him down to size, at least in their own estimation, and they succeeded in proving that there was nothing exceptional about him. But they were the losers, not he. God does not shower his gifts on us with profligate abandon. Though we cannot earn them, we have still to be ready to receive them gratefully and constructively. A humble and contrite heart is the chalice into which the divine grace pours most freely.
The person who is privileged to minister healing requires faith no less than the one receiving it. This faith is once more a trust in God's unquenchable mercy, not in one's own ability. The essence of a healing gift is an ability to relate rapidly and intimately to a large number of people. The relationship is not an intellectual agreement, but a psychic affinity. "Deep calls to deep in the roar of God's cataracts" (Ps. 42:7). In the divine presence the souls of those devoted to God's love and ministering his healing establish a perfect relationship with those they are helping, and the Holy Spirit pours down on them all. The minister of healing should be a pure instrument of the Sprit of God, and this requires that the various blockages in the personality are dissolved by the love that comes from God. Peace of mind, openness to the fecundity of life's gifts, selfless service and a suspension of egoistic thought are the basis of the faith of all who give healing to others. Amongst the greatest obstacles to this ministry are an attitude of judgement in respect of the person being treated, a desire for personal acknowledgement, and an attempt to justify the ministry to sceptics so that they may be converted to one's own faith. Some practitioners place a failure to achieve a satisfactory result squarely on the lack of faith of the person they are treating. This in fact means a lack of faith in themselves: a failure diminishes their own self regard, and this they cannot bear. It is a terrible thing ever to accuse a suffering person of bad faith; this judgement belongs to God alone. Those who are psychically attuned can sometimes sense a resistance to healing on the part of the patient comparable with the rejection that Jesus experienced in his home town, but it is prudent not to reveal one's impression directly. Instead, undemanding love may slowly erode and break down that resistance with patience and forebearance.
As long as one wants personal triumph, the Holy Spirit is excluded from one's work. The essential attitude is "Yet not what I will, but what thou wilt" (Mark 14:36). It is, I firmly believe, God's will that there should be universal healing, but the way is his, not ours. When we interpose our desires in the process, we deflect or even block the power of the Holy Spirit, and if anything, we delay and prevent healing taking place. In the spiritual life, it is a general rule that the harder we try the less we achieve. In no area of spirituality is this more true than that of healing. When we try we are asserting our ego, which invariably looks for results to inflate its sense of importance. When we are quiet in contemplation, a higher wisdom can infuse us; this wisdom subdues the claims of the little ego and allows the spiritual power of the soul to be concentrated and properly directed. As Jesus teaches, "Whoever cares for his own safety is lost; but if a man will let himself be lost for my sake and for the Gospel, that man is safe" (Mark 8:35). As we give of ourselves to God in simplicity and trust, so he fills us with all good things. It is thus that the Holy Spirit works to his best advantage. We are not primarily concerned in extending our faith to others - this again is the work of the Holy Spirit. What we are here to do is simply to give unreserved love to all who will accept it. It was thus that Jesus proclaimed the good news that the kingdom of God was close at hand. In the end our faith in the goodness of life and the love of God is transmitted in the silence of blessing to those around us who are groping for some meaning in their disordered lives.
It is noteworthy that little children and animals frequently respond very well to healing, whether by prayer or by direct physical contact in the practice of the laying-on of hands. Their openness is limitless since they are uncontaminated by the deepening stain of worldly guilt and personal resentment. It is indeed true, as Jesus taught, that whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it (Mark 10:15). But the second act of faith that we have already noted, a commitment to follow the course that the Holy Spirit reveals, cannot be within the range of a child, let alone an animal. The same would apply to a person receiving intercessory healing prayer at a distance and unaware of it; perhaps he would be so ill as not to be able to respond rationally even if he were told that prayers were being offered for his healing. The answer here lies in the commitment of those who have requested healing for their offspring or their pets, or who have appealed for help for someone at a distance who is seriously ill. The commitment of those seeking help for someone unable to respond directly provides the necessary impetus for the Holy Spirit to start his healing work. As in the instance of infant baptism where the commitment of the parents and godparents is a very important part of the sacrament, so the concern of those who ask for healing on behalf of a third party plays its part in effecting a cure or at least an amelioration of the trouble. The hope remains that a rational being may take on the commitment of another's caring when he returns to health. Certainly the harvest of deep intercessory prayer has included many previously indifferent people who have subsequently been brought into an active, progressive faith.
Faith is tested sometimes by apparent rejection. Jesus at first rejected the appeal of the Syro-Phoenician woman that her daughter might be delivered from an unclean spirit. He said to her provocatively that the children (of Israel) should be satisfied first; it was not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs (the Gentiles). But she replied that even the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps. This gesture of supreme humility confirmed the faith she had in the power of Christ, and as a consequence her daughter was delivered from the troublesome entity (Mark 7:24:30). Commitment to God is an essential ingredient of the faith that saves. Had the woman been so affronted by the rebuff she had received that she turned away in resentment, there would have been no healing. Jesus certainly reveals himself in a hard, rather uncompromising, light in this episode, though I am convinced there was a subtle sense of humour concealed beneath the façade of indifference he displayed to the Gentile woman. In everyday life the apparent rejection is repeated whenever our prayers for healing are apparently unheard by God despite our previously irreproachable behaviour. We have to persist; patience is another ingredient of faith. Even when there is no apparent outward change, we are still being renewed inwardly for the great trial ahead of us. Everything Jesus said and did was in preparation for his death and passion, and for the initiation of his disciples to full spiritual mastery. Faith transcends the demands of the personal self, or ego. In its fullness it embraces the world in selfless devotion.
This chapter commenced with a reflection on the healing of the woman who had "an issue of blood", but in fact that was merely an episode in an even greater story, the raising to life of the daughter of Jairus, the president of one of the synagogues (Mark 5:21-43). Jesus was summoned by her father when she was at death's door, but his faith in the healing power of Christ was absolute. It is recorded that while Jesus was still speaking to the woman who had been healed by touching his cloak, the news came of the death of Jairus' daughter. Jesus, however, told Jairus not to be afraid, but only to have faith. When he arrived at Jairus' house, it was clear that the child was dead, but Jesus, accompanied by his three closest disciples Peter, John and James (who were also to witness both the transfiguration and the agony at Gethsemane), approached the motionless child and resuscitated her. We may, armed with modern knowledge about states of suspended life bordering on death - so-called clinical death - dispute whether the child was really dead or not, but it is quite apparent that Jesus performed a miracle in that she immediately arose and walked about. Jesus infused the child with the Holy Spirit who is the lord and giver of life, and she revived to continue her work in the world before she, like the remainder of mankind, was to be called to a timely death and resurrection to a new form of life. Again the faith of her father played its part in assisting the work of Christ. He was a loving intercessor between God and his afflicted daughter. Perhaps the three disciples were present to perform a similar role; alternatively they were privileged to see a physical resuscitation in order to augment their own faith, which was, as later events in the life of Jesus were to show, less perfect than they had believed.
It is interesting that the child was twelve years old, and the woman had suffered from haemorrhages for twelve years. Twelve is the sacred number of the Bible: twelve were the sons of Jacob, the tribes of Israel and the apostles of Christ. In the book of Revelation (7:4) we read that from all the tribes of Israel there were a hundred and forty-four thousand who had received the seal of God upon their foreheads, twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes. They were to be saved from destruction. In the case of both the woman who was healed and the child who was brought back to earthly existence from physical death, the period of twelve years can with profit be seen to represent a time of purification in the world. The woman had gained faith through prolonged physical suffering and was at last ready to be healed. The child was to be lifted above a superficial earthly consciousness to a cosmic view of reality, such as is repeatedly described by those who have been clinically dead, during which time they have had a near-death experience of transcendence. Both the woman and the child had entered a new life; they had in fact received a fleeting glimpse of resurrection as the old order passed away and a new life unfolded before them.