A Remembrance of Personal Healing, Mark 1, 40-42

A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched the leper, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.” (Mark 1: 40-42 NAB)

This part of the gospel for Thursday, the First Week in Ordinary Time, leapt out at me as I was preparing for a Word/Communion service for Thursday of last week. I had gotten home from teaching my 7^th grade Faith Formation class, and was looking at the scripture readings for the next morning. Have you ever had a scripture passage excite and stimulate your memory? I sat in reverie on these few words from 11 pm until 1 in the morning.

My first memory was from this past Thanksgiving. I had driven to Mala Strana, our local nursing home, to pick up my mom and bring her to my home for Thanksgiving dinner. Even though it has been 2 years since my last surgery, I still walk using a cane. As I entered Mala Strana I met a parishioner who greeted me with the words, “When are you going to get rid of that thing?” referring to my cane. The man’s tone of voice and context of his words insinuated that I was less than genuine in my attempts at rehabilitation brought to mind a quote of W.C. Fields. “I was thinking thoughts that would make a coroner’s eyebrows raise.” I replied directly and a tersely, “when my physical therapist tells me it is safe to do so!” Then, I turned my back on him and walked to my mother’s room. 

Making assumptions is a very dangerous undertaking. We do it every day. As the old saying goes, “don’t assume, it only make an “ass” out of “u” (you) and “me”. This guy had no idea of the hellish 11 months it took to replace my left hip, the six major surgeries I had and battling a MRSA infection that nearly killed me. He had no idea the amount of physical therapy and rehabilitation it took me to get as far as I am today.

I hadn’t the time or the inclination to explain to him that for the past 10 weeks I was doing a rigorous amount of physical therapy primarily because I had been trying to not use a cane. In my attempt to rid myself of the cane, I had thrown the mechanics of my right leg (the good leg) off and it was adversely affecting my ability to walk. On top of it, in x-raying my right leg, the doctor discovered that not only was I lacking any cartilage in my right knee and it was filled with arthritis, but I had somewhere in time fractured that knee. The use of the cane was imperative in me being able to walk well and to preserve the function of my right leg. The man’s words and his attitude only illustrated how incredibly uninformed and how poor his judgment is. 

We see in this passage, the Leper also making an assumption about  Jesus. He comes to Jesus assuming that while Jesus has the power to heal him, he doesn’t really have the desire to do so. Jesus corrects the man’s ill informed assumption by telling him that contrary to what the man thought, he did wish to heal him, and then heals the man. If I am to be perfectly honest, I, too have made the same assumption of Jesus countless times during my own 11^th month health crisis. I kept on praying to Jesus for healing, but would Jesus really heal me? 

The answer to a request of healing does not always come about in the way we hope it will. This is what the sacrament of the anointing of the sick is all about. Sometimes, the healing is physical. Other times the healing is emotional. And, another time, we find the healing spiritual. My healing came in the middle of the night at a time that was perhaps the second darkest night of my illness and my life.

My second memory, Monday, October 10, 2011. I was on my 10^th week of having no left hip. I had undergone a rigorous 2^nd round of antibiotics in order to kill the MRSA infection that had invaded my body. I was hoping that having completed this 2^nd round of antibiotics I would be able to have my second hip replacement done by the end of October. The morning of October 10^th, I noticed that the upper part of the incision on my left leg was very sore. The incision resembles a long capital letter Y, with the top of the Y up and behind my left hip area and extends all the way down to my left knee.

By 6 pm, my left leg was more than just sore, it started to hurt profusely and no changing of position would help alleviate the pain. By 9 pm, the pain I was experiencing was excruciating. Ruthie was trying to get a couple of hours of sleep before having to get up and go in to work that night. I awakened her and told her that I was in trouble. I was hurting so badly I could not even get into the car. Ruthie helped me into the wheelchair and pushed me all the way from our home to the Emergency Room. Luckily, we live only 2 blocks from the hospital and the weather had not turned very cold yet.

The effort of having my left leg x-rayed was so painful that I nearly fainted. They transferred me to a room in the hospital and began to give me IV pain killers. That, at least, allowed me to sleep. In the morning, when my doctor came in to see me at 8 am, he touched my left leg and the pain nearly sent me through the roof. He did a quick consultation with my orthopedic surgeon and within an hour or so, I was being loaded up with vitamin K to clot my blood (I had been on a post-surgical blood thinners) and transported to Fairview Southdale Hospital for emergency surgery. The MRSA infection had returned with a vengeance for a third time.

Upon arriving at Fairview Southdale, I was transferred directly from the ambulance to surgery. For the 4^th time, the entire incision on my left leg was reopened. For the third time, they drained the infection from my leg. For the second time they placed another antibiotic laden cement block in the space where my left hip had once been. For the fifth time they closed the incision, however, this time they could not use staples for there was too much scar tissue. They had to use 20 lb weight fish line to sew it up. Then, 2 hours later, I was transferred to my room.

It was a long night. As the anesthesia from the surgery wore off, the pain returned. I was constipated from the effects of the anesthesia and the Vitamin K I had received earlier in the day. The hours passed as slow as months, and pain and discomfort were overwhelming.

My one companion that helped me through many long nights over those 11 months was my iPod. I had downloaded to the iPod audio books, months upon months of music, and even a few movies and T.V. shows. 

My prayer to Jesus was exactly like that of the Leper in this gospel passage. “If you really want to heal me, you can do it! Why are you not healing me?!” I placed the headphones over my ears, and searched for comfort in the many religious songs and hymns on my iPod. I clicked on one I knew vaguely, “Magnificat” by Fr James Chepponis.

The organ softly played the opening chords, an oboe obligato quietly wafted over the chords, and a soprano voice gently sung, “Proclaim the greatness of God, rejoice in God our savior; rejoice in God our savior.” The refrain repeated with an alto voice joining that of the soprano. They sang the first verse in two part harmony and as they returned to refrain they were joined by a children’s choir. This setting of Mary’s beautiful canticle continued to quietly grow with more and more voices added to the music. Then, just as quietly as it began, the soprano and alto concluded the song.

From the opening chords, I found myself transported from my bed of pain. My consciousness floating, as it were, on top of the pitches as they ascended and descended upon the musical staff. Upon this beautiful sea of sound I was held aloft by the words of Mary, and upon the closing musical phrase, I was gently laid down upon my hospital bed.

My body was still broken. The pain and the constipation remained. However, my shattered soul was healed and made whole again. Even as I write this, I remember the peace that I felt, my eyes still well with tears of thankfulness. “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched the leper, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.”

Not all healing is a televised public media event where crutches, walkers and wheel chairs are cast away as people rise from their modern day mats to walk again. I have come to understand that healing most often comes rather in the hours of darkness in which morning is often disguised as night. And, as gently as the sound of an oboe softly plays over the sustained chords of an organ we hear the words, “I do will it. Be made clean.”