Christian Perspectives

Having access to Divine Healing

Nayomini Ratnayaka Weerasooriya

Jesus raises a dead girl and heals a sick woman Mark 5:21-43 - NIV

In the above Scriptures, we see the Lord in one of His most compassionate healings recorded in the Bible. The synagogue leader Jairus’s little daughter, who was dead, was healed as Jesus laid hands on her. When the crowds told the Lord as he arrived at the house, that the girl is dead, Jesus told her father, “Don’t be afraid – just believe.” And when Jesus took her by the hand, she woke up and was well. I have always pictured this powerful moving scene in my heart.

Jesus’s words convey, as always, His divine power of healing, restoration and peace. When He takes us by the hand, we are healed, revived and made whole again.

This passage of Scripture conveys a simple but profound message of faith to every believer. “Just believe” – That’s just what the Lord wants us to do – when we are faced with life’s storms. The finest diamond gets sent through the fire – without the fire, the diamond will not have its sparkle and hence, its value. Life is often like that. When we face challenges, we only need to believe that everything will work out fine and that the Lord permits those very challenges to refine and mature our character.

“Don’t be afraid – just believe” those are Jesus’s tender words to us, locked as we are in the throes of a world in pain, steeped in sin, faced everyday with problems and complex issues that need our prayer and our faith. Our faith can get tested again and again for we do live in this world although ‘we are not of the world’ as the Scriptures so faithfully confirm.

The healing of the synagogue ruler’s daughter is interspersed in the Scriptures with the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. She had been bleeding for twelve years and had finished all her money on medicines. Sounds very much like some of us today. Many have spent a lot of money on medicines but healing has not come – for them, the healing of the woman with the issue of blood presents a powerful testimony of healing and hope.

The bleeding woman merely touched the cloak of the Lord – and she was healed. The Lord used this Scripture to speak to me when I faced a life threatening bleeding episode in connection with a fibroid. I have been healed of it completely since then. Remember, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.

It is a very touching scene. In the midst of a large crowd that has been following the Lord and pressing around him, one frightened woman slowly comes near him. If I touch His clothes, I will be healed, she tells herself and you immediately see the simple faith of the woman in action. The bleeding stops as her shaking hands touch the cloak the Lord is wearing.

Having realized that power had gone out from him Jesus turns around and asks the crowd, “Who touched my clothes?”

The disciples give a very human answer, which anyone of us may have given, “You see the people crowding against you, and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

Lord Jesus knows the questions and the answers – he spots the trembling woman who falls at His feet and tells him the truth. His word to her soothes her soul and spirit – it still soothes and heals us deep down.

“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

He is saying those exact words to us today. Just as he asked Jairus not to be afraid but to simply believe, He is confirming to us in the Word that our faith heals us – there’s peace and freedom to those who have experienced and continue to experience His grace.

There’s timeless beauty and grace in our Lord Jesus Christ, alive now as He was back then. There’s quietness for the soul, healing for the body and mind and peace that the humans cannot understand or comprehend, as you fall at His feet and learn to embrace His love without the drama, the rituals. It is a wonderful relationship that is renewed and afresh every morning – just Jesus and you, just Jesus and I, able to share his wonderful blessing every morning.

Season of Lent – 2012 :

Suffering of Christ conveyed by rituals and practices

Miran Perera

The commemoration of the agony and death of Christ is not confined to Easter. The church has set apart 40 days in the liturgical calendar to commemorate the agony and suffering Christ underwent for the salvation of mankind. This period is called the season of Lent. In Sinhala it is called ‘Korosme Kalaya’ following the Portuguese term ‘Quaresema'.

The Catholics observe the season of Lent as a season of penance and repentance. Gloria and Alleluia are not sung in churches during Lent. During Lent, Catholics avoid weddings and merry making, as it is a time for prayer, penance and meditation.

The sermons given during the season of Lent are taken from the Nine Sermons of Dukprapti Prasangaya written by Fr. Jacome Gonsalvez. These sermons and prayers like ‘Mal Uyane Yakgnawa’ and ‘Kayadushkara Prarthanawa’ are recited in a plaintive tone in the chanting style of Sinhala prose. Many follow the way of cross which is a meditation on the suffering of Christ that is divided into 14 stations.

The season of Lent lasts for 40 days from Ash Wednesday until the feast of the resurrection of Christ on the Easter Sunday. Before he began his public life Christ spent 40 days in prayer, meditation and fasting in preparation to his ministry. During the season of Lent, Catholics fasted every Friday and abstained from eating meat, on Wednesdays and Fridays. They avoided attending weddings, feasts and celebrations. It was a time of prayer, penance and meditation. People in Catholic villages used to get together and recite Pasan on the sufferings of Christ and plaintive hymns.

Pasan in the present form was introduced by Fr Jacome Gonsalvez. Pasan or lamentations on the agonies of Christ was composed by in the laudable language of Prasasthi Kavyas or eulogistic poems set to a mixture of carnatic ragas and folk music. The sermons were taken from the work Dukprapthi Prasangaya also written by Fr Jacome Gonsalvez. Along with Pasan and sermons prayers like Kayadushkara Prarthanava and Maluyane Yakgnava were also recited in plantive tones in the chanting style of Sinhala prose.

The season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. According to Christian belief, Adam the first man on earth was created by god with soil. On the Ash Wednesday at Mass, the priest marks the sign of the cross on the forehead of devotees saying ‘you are dust and unto dust you will return'.

This reminds us that the death is inevitable and the importance of a virtual life for happiness after death. The ash used on Ash Wednesday is generally made by burning palm leaves of the Palm Sunday of the previous year.

On the Palm Sunday during Lent the Catholics commemorate the triumphant entry of Christ in to Jerusalem where people welcomed him carrying olive branches shouting ‘Hassanna to the son of David'. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hossanna in the highest.

Lamentations coming from the Blessed Virgin Mary on the agony of Christ is called ‘Lathoni’ and those sung by others on the same is called Pasan proper.

The Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday. The next important day in the Holy Week is the Maundy Thursday where the establishment of the Holy Eucharist is commemorated.

On this day at Mass, the priest washes the feet of the twelve people to signify the washing of the feet of disciplines by Christ as an act of humility. After the Maundy Thursday Mass the Holy Eucharist is placed on a special tabernacle and groups perform holy hour before it.

The most important day of the Holy Week is the Good Friday where all Christians commemorate the death of Christ after three hours of agony on the cross.

In some places Passion plays and three hours of agony of Christ are enacted connected to Good Friday Mass. It was blessed Joseph who introduced Passion plays based on the model of Catholic puppet drama he had witnessed in Goa. Later human actors too participated in Passion plays along with the statues.

All in the village contributed to the success of Passion plays shown free at church premises. It is on record in Oratorian Mission that there were passion shows in Kandy and in Vanni during the season of Lent in 1706 and later in Trincomalee and in several other places.

Special attention is paid to the Easter vigil performed on the Holy Saturday. On this day there is the renewal with blessings of fire and water.

To be continued

Renovated St Sebastian's Church, Bulathkohupitiya celebrates 75 years

A Correspondent

Year 2012 is a very significant year in the annals of the Bulathkohupitiya parish of the diocese of Ratnapura. It is because the parish church which is dedicated to St Sebastian very proudly and zealously celebrates her diamond jubilee this year with her church renovated, extended and refurbished which undoubtedly doubles the jubilation.

Bulathkohupitiya is a small town which lies along the beautifully hilly areas of Kegalle district. It is said that, ‘Every great phenomenon always has simple beginnings’, so it is true with the parish of St Sebastian Bulathkohupitiya.

When we trace back the pages of the history of the parish we could gather that in 1930s there was only one prominent Catholic business family in the area. It was late Don Charles Muhanthiramge family from Tharala who owned lots of area of Bulathkohupitiya at that time. It was he who donated one of his prime lands in the hill-top to Rt Rev G Robichez, SJ, the Administrative Apostolate of Galle diocese in 1932 January 2, and initially built a small chapel to St Sebastian in a cadjan hut.

Later in 1937, M D Charles himself built a beautiful chapel to St Sebastian which lasts till today. At that time, the French and the Italian missionaries were serving in the Galle diocese and they had to travel from one place to the other covering a vast area from Galle to Kegalle with very little transport facilities. Over the years it was the descendants of M D Charles who had been the benefactors of this little beautiful chapel of St Sebastian and it was under the supervision of Yatiyantota parish.

The year 1998 was a landmark in the chronicles of the church as it was in this year that the substation of St Sebastian's church was raised to the dignity of the rank of a parish. His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, then the Bishop of Ratnapura after he undertook the governance of the diocese of Ratnapura, it was Bulathkohupitiya that was made a parish at first. The new parish of St Sebastian's Bulathkohupitiya was carved with new territories starting from Udugoda to Kiriporuwa and with the parish priest residing at the mission house. Rev Fr Premasiri Fernando OMI was the first parish priest of the parish whose tremendous services gathered the flock who were geographically scattered.

At present, Bulathkohupitiya parish consists of 150 families of both Sinhalese and Tamil of which over 95 percent of the parishioners work as day labourers in the tea and rubber estates and they stay below the poverty line, usually earning very little which is barely enough for their living. Given to these circumstances, the parish church which would reach 75 years of existence this year needed to be renovated as it was high time for it.

In the month of November 2011, the present parish priest Rev Fr Satheesh Savarimuthu CMF together with the parishioners launched the renovation work with the blessings from His Lordship Rt Rev Dr Cletus Chandrasiri Perera OSB, the Bishop of Ratnapura with the funds they had collected.

Right now the renovation work is progressing quite quickly, unquestionably by the benevolence and mercy of God, and completed more than 60 percent of the task. We hope by God's grace and from the generosity of people to complete the task during this diamond jubilee year.