How do you feel when the reality of your life does not meet your expectations?
Do you feel anxious? Do you doubt God’s love for you?
In Spes Non Confundit, Pope Francis teaches these feelings are common to us all:
“Everyone knows what it is to hope. In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring. Even so, uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt.” (1)
Last month we heard how an incurable illness crashed through the new marriage and dream of family for Deacon Tom and Mary Jane Fox. Out of human options for a cure, Mary Jane agreed to go to a parish healing service desperate to be healed.
1981-1983
Mary Jane: I felt so good after. The experience made me hungry for more. “Now what do I do?” I decided to go to daily Mass after work the following week. After Mass, a woman introduced herself to me and invited me to a parish prayer group. I went and was asked, “Why are you here?” I told my story and said, “I want healing. I want God to help me.” People in the group recommended I go see a man who has a prayer ministry and is known for his healing hands. When I heard that he prays over people, I immediately remembered the beautiful experience of the healing priest and thought, “That’s what I am looking for.”
I went the following Sunday. The man told me, “Don’t worry. Just close your eyes and imagine Jesus.” I didn’t know how to do this and asked him what he meant. He said, “Just picture Jesus.” I had no idea what picture to have so I just closed my eyes. I did not choose an image, but an image came to me: Jesus dressed in white stood at his tomb. He held one hand towards me and one hand towards the empty tomb. He looked at me and smiled.
It is so beautiful how patiently God waits, respecting our free will. As soon as you recognize it is God you need, you are able to hear Him knocking. It is really that simple. And when you finally open the door, He rushes in and embraces you through people He places in your life and opportunities that present themselves to you.
Deacon Tom: I could see Mary Jane was feeling good about herself. She stopped missing work, and her smile returned. She took her mother and grandmother with her to the prayer group and encouraged me to join them, but I was not ready to give up my Sunday routine of watching sports and enjoying a beer. Mary Jane visited her doctor. After the examination he said, “Wow! You don’t have endometriosis anymore. What happened? Except for the scars, nothing remains.” Mary Jane responded, “Well, God healed me. I know it.” The doctor looked very skeptical. He said, “Whatever you are doing, it worked.” She looked right at him and said, “It is God.” Mary Jane did not convince the doctor, but she did convince me.
Mary Jane: I knew that God had touched me and that He had healed me. I now had joy in the fact that God had looked at me. Tom saw the change in me and began attending the Sunday prayer meetings with me. We grew in a desire to know more about God and our Catholic faith. We also began reading Scripture and the lives of the saints and martyrs. It all really attracted us.
Deacon Tom: Work for both of us was as busy as ever. Although Mary Jane had resumed her hectic travel schedule and the 24/7 demands of hotel management kept me at work for long hours, our lives were definitely progressing down a new path. I added weekday Masses to my routine, purchased my first Bible and joined my first prayer group. Mary Jane and I began to get involved with our parish.
Mary Jane: Our dream of being parents was also very much alive. Even before my miracle healing, we were trying to get pregnant. I took fertility treatments allowed by the Church. Now healed, I was sure we would soon be welcoming a new baby into our home.
Do you ask God to heal you?
God became man, suffered, died and rose to new Life for you.
Imagine Jesus smiling, looking at you. He loves you!
Proclaiming 2025 the Jubilee Year of Hope, Pope Francis writes,
“Hope is born of love and based on the love springing from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross: “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:19). That life becomes manifest in our own life of faith, which begins with Baptism, develops in openness to God’s grace and is enlivened by a hope constantly renewed and confirmed by the working of the Holy Spirit, (Spes Non Confundit, 3).”
