* Medical Students desire to become good physicians and practice the medical virtues of compassion, empathy, confidentiality and justice.

* The Catholic Tradition holds these virtues in esteem. (In an extended sense the Catholic Tradition includes essential elements of the broader Christian and Jewish traditions as well as Muslim beliefs.)

* Many of the spiritual elements of Catholicism can aid in forming an individual to better practice medicine. The virtues of compassion empathy, confidentiality, and justice assist physicians in practicing medicine.

* These virtues can be strengthened by reflecting on and understanding the Catholic tradition.

In this column we will review the written record (the Gospels) which reveals that Christ was a healer, or physician, and then describe the characteristics of a good physician and how these virtues can be developed.

A physician is one who heals. The healing is of physical or emotional illness or disease. Much of Christ's public ministry was devoted to the healing of physical diseases. Christ was a physician par excellence. The purpose of this review is to describe Christs healing miracles, and to relate this ministry to todays physicians.

The Bible is a record of Gods relationShip with His people. It is written in many literary styles. The New Testament is specifically about Christ and His miracles. For the purpose of this review, we accept the Gospels as being historically accurate. Because the Gospels were specifically meant to be a record of Christs three year eartlhly ministry, we will limit our inquiry to His physical healing as described by the Evangelists in the Four Gospels.

Miracle is a generic term with many meanings. They are defined in the Encyclopedia Britannica as "extraordinary and astonishing happenings that are attributed to the presence and action of an ultimate or Devine power". We will use this definition in the following discussion. Can be further categorized as 1) healing miracles: the cure of medical disease, 2) nature miracles: the multiplication of loaves and fishes, 3) exorcism: the casting out of demons, and finally, 4) pronouncement miracles: the prophesying of future events.

There are twelve instances where the evangelists recorded Jesus curing an un-enumerated "many" and nineteen occurrences of individual acts of specifically described diseases (and three instances of restoration of life). The former twelve do not individualize each cure. We will concentrate on the latter Interestingly, there were six exorcism miracles and four nature miracles.

The evangelists wrote the Gospels to tell those in the Christian community, who did not personally know Christ, about His life and mission. Their narratives were not clinical medical histories in the form of case studies. Several miracles ware recorded by two or more evangelists; many are no. Many arc described individually, but others are simply references to the fact that Christ "healed many." The healing miracles should be accepted as they were intended by the evangelists, that is, to be their descriptions of Christ's supernatural ability to cure the physical and mental sufferings of others. Efforts at specifying blindness, for example, as total or partial, or what is meant by palsy, serves no purpose and would in any event be impossible.

The reason for performing His miracles was twofold: Christ intended, first, to; use His supernatural power to promote His message of salvation as a revelation of God's mercy, and second, to alleviate the sufferings of the person with the disease.

First, Christ became man to redeem mankind and to proclaim His message. To proclaim His message He had to get the attention of His Palestinian audience. One dramatic means of doing this was to perform miracles. He was able to draw able to draw parallels between physical healing and spiritual salvation, and so influence His listeners.

Secondly, Christ was compassionate and healed to relieve the suffering and pain of those with infirmities. The evangelists specifically noted Christ's feeling of pity and concern for those that were sick.

There were four instances each of curing blindness and healing cripples. Again, 'cripple' is used in the generic sense and includes paralysis, withered hand and the palsy. There were two miracle cures of both lepers (one a single case and one of ten lepers) and "fevers". There were single instances of cures of deafness, severed ear, dropsy, and hemorrhage. Finally, there were three cases of restoration of life.

There were three recurring characteristics that the evangelists recorded regarding Christ's miracles. They noted that Christ touched (ten of nineteen) many of His sick subjects to effect the healing. He touched the eyes of the blind and the ear of Peter's victim. Christ also employed spittle and clay when touching the deaf and blind individuals.

There were several instances when the evangelists specifically noted that Christ was moved by compassion toward those who suffered and whom He subsequently cured. The concern for those with illness characterizes Christ's ministry and was documented frequently by the evangelists.

Finally, the evangelists noted in several instances that Christ requested of those He cured that they not tell anyone else about the cure. This request not to publicize the cures was probably for two reasons. First, it would increase the public commotion and speed up Christ's public ministry which was to last three years Secondly, it would enrage the leaders and prompt them to silence Jesu.s before His allotted time.

Christ instructed his disciples to "cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons" (Mt. 10:9). The New Testament describing the early church is filled with instances of miraculous healing both physical as well as spiritual. While many of the New Testament cures are of clearly physical diseases, most were of illness that had emotional and/or spiritual components.

Similarly, many if not most of today's diseases, from hypertension to ulcer disease, also are multi-factored. We tend to focus on the purely physical and ignore the psychosomatic and life style aspects of diseases. The current trend toward holistic medicine is evidence of the broader emotional and spiritual implications of illness. Christ in the Gospel stories is telling us something about the complex relationship between the human body and soul.

A review of Christ's healing miracles has relevance for today's physicians for several reasons. First, the human condition as far as illness and pain are concerned has not changed significantly in the past two millennia. Blindness and crippling neurologic problems were common then as now. We are still confronted by most of the illnesses Christ faced.

Secondly, Christ to promote His ministry appealed to the peoples of Palestine in a direct and dramatic manner. He miraculously cured and thereby conveyed His message, that spiritual healing was as necessary to gain the kingdom of heaven, as was physical healing to function on earth. We provide emotional support along with medical intervention.

Thirdly, Christ down played His healing and this modesty might be good advice for today's physician following therapeutic success.

Finally, Christ's healing miracles are particularly important to physicians because we must be compassionate, or more-specifically, empathetic, toward the illness and suffering of our patients. Of interest are the frequently recorded instances of"touching", that mediated Jesus' cures. Indeed, most of His cures involved touching. Touching is a remarkably human act.

Perhaps the time honored tradition of the physician's "laying on of hands" should be reemphasized in medical school. Hopefully by mediating Christ's ministry and particularly on the healing miracles physicians will deepen their sense of faith, which in turn should motivate us to be even better physicians.

Table One and Table Two

Character, Virtue, and the Structure of the Doctor/Patient Relationship.

---

H O M E ~ D O N A T I O N S ~ E M A I L

---

This page was last updated on January 7th, 2002.