We’ll spend half of this month in Ordinary Time and half in Lent, with Ash Wednesday launching the penitential season on the 17th. Yet the entire month is dedicated to black history—a good time to learn the stories of some black U.S. saints-in-waiting: Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, Pierre Toussaint, Father Augustus Tolton, Julia Greeley, Mother Henriette DeLille, and Sister Thea Bowman, F.S.P.A.

Job moans about the repetitious pointlessness of life. Saint Paul and Jesus, in their preaching and teaching, show quite the contrary. Both are compelled to proclaim the abundant life that God intends for us.

What’s the main topic of the Bible? Pose this question, and you’ll get a variety of answers: sin, salvation, love, law, morality, or meaning. Few will suggest that the Bible is mostly about healing and wholeness. Yet some scripture scholars and not a few Christian doctors have made that argument persuasively.

Our family doctor was brought to Chicago by Mother Cabrini herself to care for the growing Italian immigrant population. Ten months before I was born, my sister had died of Polio at the age of 7. My mother was left struggling through a difficult pregnancy.

Before he was ordained, when Father Richard Zuk graduated from college, he started working in direct marketing and sales. At the time, he had stopped practicing his Catholic faith.

Preaching and healing are all of a piece for Jesus. You speak of God’s love and people are healed. Author Tony Hendra experienced the power of this combinative ministry the first time he encountered the late Benedict Monk Father Joe Warrilow, whom he pays tribute to in Father Joe.

We turn to you, Lord, who gathers and guides us in your wisdom.

Healing yourself is connected with healing others.