Volume 2

Manner of Jesus' Curing 229
models for His followers and disciples. He always made
the manner of their performance conform to the evil and
the special needs of those that had recourse to Him. He
touched the lame, their muscles were loosened, and they
stood upright. The broken parts of fractured members He
placed together, and they united. He touched the leprous,
and immediately at the touch of His divine hand, I saw
the blisters drying and peeling off, leaving behind the red
scars. These, little by little, though more quickly than
was usual in ordinary cures, disappeared. The greater or
less merit of the invalid often determined the rapidity of
his cure. I never saw a humpback instantly become
straight, nor a crooked bone suddenly become a perfectly
formed one. Not that Jesus could not have produced such
effects, but His miracles were not intended as spectacles
for a gazing multitude. They were works of mercy, they
were symbolical images of His mission, a releasing, a
reconciliation, an instruction, a development, a redeeming.
As He desired man's cooperation in the work of his
own Redemption, so too did He denland from those that
asked of Him a miraculous cure their own cooperation
by faith, hope, love, contrition, and reformation of life.
Every state had its own manner of treatment. As every
malady of the body symbolized some malady of the
spiritual order, some sin or the chastisement due to it, so
did every cure symbolize SOllle grace, some conversion,
or the cure of some particular spiritual evil. It was only
in presence of pagans that I saw Jesus sometimes operating
more astonishing, more prodigious miracles. The
miracles of the Apostles and of saints that came after
them were far more striking than those of Our Lord and
far more contrary to the usual course of nature, for the
heathens needed to be strongly affected, while the Jews
needed only to be freed from their bonds. Jesus often
cured by prayer at a distance, and often by a glance,
especially in the case of women afflicted by a bloody