Our Venerable Father Sisoes the Great (c. 429)
Abstinence from meat and foods that contain meat.
Read
1 Corinthians 7:35-8:7; Matthew 15:29-31
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
This brief account of Our Lord healing the mute, blind, maimed, and lame provides a wonderful reminder for us of who He is. Jesus lived out a public ministry in which He made people whole, whether in the manner we read today or in other ways such as freeing those possessed by demons, challenging the sinful such as the Samaritan woman by the well, or healing the paralytic spiritually as well as physically: “Your sins are forgiven.” Due to our sinfulness and our falling away from God we break apart in one sense, things don’t work together as they should: our body suffers, we become enslaved to our passions, we often fail to think rightly, and we push God away through misuse of our free will. Our Lord sees this and came into the world to heal this brokenness -to make us whole. This is what He did during His ministry on earth, it is what He does through His Resurrection now, and it is what He will accomplish when He comes again.
The Greek word for order is cosmos. Our Lord, in coming into our world, restores order; He enables us to be whole, but we must desire this. Today’s Gospel account states that as Jesus healed those brought to Him the throng who were gathered around Him wondered when they saw the healings He wrought. Of course, these miracles are a source of great wonder, so we may understand the wonderment of the crowd as being utter amazement -they had never seen anything like this. But perhaps we might understand this in another way. Did some in the crowd that day wonder in the sense of pondering within their hearts: “Would He heal me?” Did they who appeared outwardly whole and ordered among the throng of the lame, blind, and mute yearn within for an encounter with the Saviour?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Have mercy upon me and heal me so that I too may wonder at your great love and mercy.