For me, a Roman Catholic priest born in the 30s, it was very difficult in the 60s and 70s to embrace the phenomenon of physical faith-healing. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in it, but, outside of the sacraments, it was not an ordinary part of our Catholic experience.

Indeed, there had been healings of all kinds before the Charismatic Renewal, but the primary way we were taught to deal with any kind of suffering for the last 400 years or so was to "offer it up." For we believed and still believe that the pain of the world, including my pain, is also Christ’s pain, and that we are called to be with him in that pain.

So when the Roman Catholic community was called by the Spirit into a renewal of the charisma of physical healing in the 60s, I "bit the bullet," (to use another popular expression which means "gave in") and embraced the gifts of the Spirit.

It was truly a wonderful and life-giving time. There was just one problem for me. I never got healed.

It didn’t bother me at first, because those who seemed to get healed were in much more painful and difficult straits than I was.

Then another healing charisma blossomed forth, namely, inner healing. This was a little more difficult and delicate pastorally, but it was just as wonderful and life-giving as the other kind of healing had been. But again there was just one problem for me. I never got healed.

Throughout that whole first decade of charismatic healings, it seemed like everybody was leaping up and down celebrating, "Praise You, Jeeeezus," and there I was still standing in line, waiting and wondering.

To make it even worse, according to some "leapin’ lepers," the reason I wasn’t healed was that I didn’t have enough faith, I didn’t believe enough, I didn’t this, I didn’t that.

By then I knew that was not true simply because I could rejoice, even "leap" a little, at everybody else’s healing, even though I wasn’t getting healed. So this ole leper whose limbs were getting a bit too old for "leapin’ " preferred to go and just be alone and quiet before the Lord.

Sometimes I would ask those standard questions, "What’s wrong with me, Lord?" "Why don’t you cure me?" "How am I going to live in the midst of a believing community that constantly experiences these miracles when I don’t?" "Is there something wrong with my faith?"

I never really got any answers, so I just stopped asking and rested in the silence in the quiet presence of the Lord.

And then one night, I got it! I suddenly realized that it wasn’t about being "cured." I had done all the "leapin’" I needed to do. I was being "healed," and it was happening right there in the silence with the Lord.

One of them turned back…and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him (Lk 17:16).

To be "cured," in the biblical sense, is to recover completely and miraculously by the power of God from a physical illness or malady.

To be "healed" is, I think, to experience a miraculous mending of a fractured or delicate relationship between ourselves and God. And once healing in that sense takes place, we often don’t need or even want a cure anymore.

The wonderful lesson I finally learned after so many years of exposure to the charisma of healing was that I was so focused on getting completely "cured" that I didn’t even realize I had long since been well on the way to being completely "healed."

The ten lepers in the Gospel event were all cured. They recovered from their malady, their leprosy, completely and miraculously. And in their rightful joy they leapt.

Yet only one was healed; only one went back to him who cures. And little did he realize that, amazing as that physical cure was, it was only part of the cure. That part indeed calls for leaping and jumping for joy in the Lord.

But for healing, you have to kneel before the Lord and be silent before the mysery until he tells you, Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you (Lk 17:19).

Once you hear that in your heart, even if your "leprosy" returns, it doesn’t make any difference: you will always know that you are healed.

When you hear these wonderful miracle stories and have to face the undeniable fact that the Lord is not curing you or someone in your family, don’t deny the pain and the disappointment of that realization. Just tell the Lord; tell him this humbly and openly. You can tell him anything, you know.

And then be still and quiet in his presence. He will reveal to you why you are not cured. Yes, he will!

Don’t be surprised if it’s because you are already healed!

Healed? Leapin’ lepers!