Edith Stein

The soul is housed in a body on whose vigor and health its own vigor and health depend – even if not exclusively nor simply. On the other hand, the body receives its nature as body – life, motion, form, gestalt, and spiritual significance – through the soul. The world of the spirit is founded on sensuousness, which is spiritual as much as physical: the intellect, knowing its activity to be rational, reveals a world; the will intervenes creatively and formatively in this world; the emotion receives this world inwardly and puts it to the test. But the extent and relationship of these powers vary from one individual to another, and particularly from man to woman.…

But a certain danger is involved here. If the correct, natural order is to exist between soul and body (i.e., the order as it corresponds to unfallen nature), then the necessary nourishment, care, and exercise must be provided for the healthy organism’s smooth function. As soon as more physical satisfaction is given to the body, and it corresponds to its corrupted nature to demand more, then it results in a decline of spiritual existence. Instead of controlling and spiritualizing the body, the soul is controlled by it; and the body loses accordingly in its character as a human body. The more intimate the relationship of the soul and body is, just so will the danger of the spiritual decline be greater.

Edith Stein, Essays on Woman v. 2 revised second edition (ICS Publications: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1996). Used by permission.

All artwork by Becca Thorne, from her Marginal Habitats linocut series. Used by permission.

Wendell Berry

In healing, the body is restored to itself. It begins to live again by its own powers and instincts, to the extent that it can do so. To the extent that it can do so, it goes free of drugs and mechanical helps. Its appetites return. It relishes food and rest. The patient is restored to family and friends, home and community and work.

This process has a certain naturalness and inevitability, like that by which a child grows up, but industrial medicine seems to grasp it only tentatively and awkwardly. For example, any ordinary person would assume that a place of healing would put a premium upon rest, but hospitals are notoriously difficult to sleep in. They are noisy all night, and the routine interventions go on relentlessly. The body is treated as a machine that does not need to rest.…

In the world of love, things separated by efficiency and specialization strive to come back together. And yet love must confront death, and accept it, and learn from it. Only in confronting death can earthly love learn its true extent, its immortality. Any definition of health that is not silly must include death. The world of love includes death, suffers it, and triumphs over it. The world of efficiency is defeated by death; at death, all its instruments and procedures stop. The world of love continues, and of this grief is the proof.

Wendell Berry, excerpt from “Health is Membership” from The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays. Copyright © 1994, 2002 by Wendell Berry. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Counterpoint Press.

Teresa of Ávila

All these tokens of the fear of God came to me through prayer; and the greatest of them was this, that fear was swallowed up of love – for I never thought of chastisement. All the time I was so ill, my strict watch over my conscience reached to all that is mortal sin.

O my God! I wished for health, that I might serve Thee better; that was the cause of all my ruin. For when I saw how helpless I was through paralysis, being still so young, and how the physicians of this world had dealt with me, I determined to ask those of heaven to heal me – for I wished, nevertheless, to be well, though I bore my illness with great joy. Sometimes, too, I used to think that if I recovered my health, and yet were lost forever, I was better as I was. But, for all that, I thought I might serve God much better if I were well. This is our delusion; we do not resign ourselves absolutely to the disposition of our Lord, who knows best what is for our good.…

I know not how we can wish to live, seeing that everything is so uncertain. Once, O Lord, I thought it impossible to forsake thee so utterly; and now that I have forsaken thee so often, I cannot help being afraid; for when thou didst withdraw but a little from me, I fell down to the ground at once. Blessed forever be thou! Though I have forsaken thee, thou hast not forsaken me so utterly but that thou hast come again and raised me up, giving me thy hand always.

Teresa of Ávila, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (London: Thomas Baker, 1904).

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt

There are two sides to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a message of forgiveness of sins, of everlasting life, but also a message of opposition to human misery. Not only is an end to sin proclaimed, but also an end to suffering and death. All suffering shall cease! Just as sin is overcome through the blood of Christ, so suffering will come to an end at the resurrection. When Jesus performed signs and wonders, he was proclaiming the gospel against suffering.

With this gospel we can be certain that the wretchedness of this world will cease, just as we are sure of everlasting life. We cannot separate these two sides of Christ. We must not one-sidedly emphasize the cross and forgiveness, while ignoring the resurrection and the overcoming of our misery. It is Satan’s trick to try and make us waver so that the Savior does not receive a full and complete hearing.

Faced with the world’s longing for redemption, it is obvious that we can never bring real comfort through the gospel as long as we stress only the one thing – that the Savior forgives our sins – and otherwise the world can go its own way. Similarly, we would be unable to bring real comfort through the gospel, if we represented the Savior only as a miracle-worker and proclaimed, “Be comforted, you can be healed through the Savior.” Then repentance and forgiveness would be utterly forgotten, and no fundamental change would ever take place in people.

Jesus allowed the sick to come to him, just as he did sinners. He was ready to forgive sins and ready to heal. There were times when very few sinners came, only sick people. And Jesus welcomed them all. Oh, that the nations would hear the good news! That the sick would come, and that sinners would come – all are welcome!

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, The God Who Heals (Plough Publishing House, 2016).

About the artist: Becca Thorne is a British illustrator and linocut printmaker. Her work focuses on themes of wildlife, nature, history, and folklore, with a particular emphasis on conservation. Her Marginal Habitats series explores the diversity of interconnected flora and fauna that make up healthy ecosystems.