NOTES for Mat 15:29-31
You look at the words the Lord speaks to us today and remember how, just the other day, you received an email asking you to pray for the newly departed young Maria. She died of cystic fibrosis. And for her mother Marina, who is now left alone, because her second daughter died of the same disease. How can this be? So many people prayed for them! And what does it matter to us that for a brief moment Christ visited the earth and healed some number of sick people... If those people were placed beside all the children through all the ages who have died, they would simply not be noticeable. So then, should we rejoice?
Yes, rejoice. Because Christ did not simply come and heal; He came and turned their diseases into His wounds, died, and rose again. He is not merely a Healer and Wonderworker, though He is both. He showed us the Way of life. He lit the road into the darkness.
Not one of Jesus' miracles is limited to a local meaning in time and space for one particular person. Therefore the Gospel stories about miracles cannot be read outside the context of the whole Gospel. Otherwise we risk falling into a very terrible error, one so characteristic of our contemporaries today: perceiving the Church as consumers. Pay for a prayer request for health, and health will increase. And the church turns into a store. It is terrible.
Christ heals, but by His wounds. This cannot be forgotten. By His wounds unto death. To a real, agonizing death. A death that was no easier for Him than it is for each of us. On the contrary, it is easier for us: we usually die under narcotics, while He refused them; we die on clean sheets, while He was covered in dried blood and dust; we are surrounded by loving relatives, while He died under mockery and abuse. One can continue this list, but it is probably not worth doing. Let our heart simply be filled with gratitude toward Him, with love and tenderness. And may we fear nothing, for "it was worse for my God, and more painful for the Mother of God" (N. S. Gumilyov)