We begin with a reading from the Gospel according to Mark Chapter 5:24-34

And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years,  and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 

She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?”

And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

It is my firm belief that God can heal us, if we have this kind of faith. This happens to be one of my most favorite bible passages from the Gospel of Mark. The woman did not seek to touch Christ or to be touched by Christ, her faith in Christ leads her to know for sure that even if she touches the hem of his garment that she will be made well.

But in Jesus’ fashion, he knew that healing power went out from him and so he stops in the crowd to address the woman who fell to her knees before him, and she confessed that it was she who reached out for him. And in Jesus’ fashion, he says “Daughter your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

How many of us have this kind of faith? And do we take our faith for granted? Do we only call upon it when it is necessary or when needed, or do we hold it close to our hearts and like the lamp, placed on a lamp stand for all to see, as they approach?

Luke 11:33-36

“None of you lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead you put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.  Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy,  your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.”

As an HIV positive man, I have been a stoic man, and pitiful man, a needy man and after so many years, I believe I am a healed man. I have prayed the prayers of a dying man more than once, yet I lived. I have prayed the prayers of a grateful man, because I must. I have prayed the prayers of a servant of God, because I am. And I have prayed the prayers of a fellow in Christ, because I pray for each and every one of  you. I believe that I have faith, because people I know and even people I have never met in person have faith in me. And that is powerful. Prayer is powerful, thought is powerful.

One of the most important lessons a sick person can learn is this: You can spend hours, days, weeks, months and years being angry at people, doctors, the system, each other and even  yourself. What are you doing sitting on all that negative energy? I know it made me sick and bitter and almost killed me, until a teacher taught me the lesson about turning negative anger into positive healing energy.

Imagine what kind of personal power we have over ourselves and our situations if we turned our anger, resentment, depression and bitterness into 100% power house kind of personal energy. Imagine the healing and restorative power that negative energy turned inwards as positive energy could do for us. It did for me. And I think that is one of the ideas that helped me turn the tide in my fight against AIDS.

All of that negative shit that I was carrying around with me for so long, all that bulky, heavy, samsonite luggage was weighing me down in my present. Over the years I have prayed away that luggage. And I have prayed away my resentments and negative thoughts, and today I practice the fine art of energy transformation. Whatever I can cast outwards in energy, I can doubly redirect inwards. And viola,  I have an unending supply of positive restorative energy at my disposal. And add to that my Christian faith and spirituality … “oh if I could only touch the hem of his garment, I would be healed…”

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I went to mass today to celebrate the Eucharist with the Revered Canon at the Cathedral, and I also went to the Cathedral because I needed to light a candle.  For me, in my spiritual exercises, visiting a church as often as possible is necessary to connect to the Sacred outside the four walls of home. To pray, to meditate, and to contemplate.

The act of lighting a candle, an archaic activity borne in the days of old holy mother church was something you did as devotion and practice, because many old churches still allow candles to burn in their sanctuaries. Places like the Oratory and Notre Dame Cathedral in Old Montreal, and even at the Cathedral downtown.

I approach the candle area with my prayers on my lips and in my heart. I light my candle and I step back, I find a pew to sit in and I begin my prayers. The fire burns, the candle consumes itself, as the fire burns the flame moves upwards, carrying my prayers to God in the heavens. It is the same with incense. Incense burns carrying the prayers of the people of the church towards the heavens.

To kneel before God is a humbling action. A bowing to the creator, a gesture of respect for the Divine and the fact that each day we should get on our knees and present ourself to God, it keeps us mindful of our humanity and shows respect for Divinity.

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The Situation

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
Because the massman will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm cater of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter,
now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven’t experienced
this; to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “The Holy Longing”

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