The Healer By Gennesaret

As Jesus became aware of the anger and plotting, he withdrew from Capernaum. A great multitude followed us into the countryside where Jesus was to heal anyone in need among those who came to hear him preach.

After speaking to the multitude, he was so thronged that he could barely make it through the crowds. Nevertheless he responded, healing all who had plagues and unclean spirits, especially those who fell down before Jesus, acknowledging, "You are the Son of God."

Jesus always tried to hush them, knowing that it caused the scribes and Pharisees to despise him even more. Eventually we left the area and salled south of Capemaum landing beyond Tiberias.

We traveled again through the Galilee, Jesus telling the people that the kingdom of God is at hand, to be held in the hearts of good people. It brought peace to many households.

We passed through Magdala, where a certain wool merchant always welcomed us to his house for supper and the night's rest. As we travel to and fro, here where the hills slope from the plain of Gennesaret to the sea, we often stop at this peaceful home.

All sorts of food, bread and fruit, vegetables, and nuts, are prepared and served to us with such generosity and variety because this family deeply loves the Master and those of us who travel with him.

And why not? On our very first day working in Magdala the delicate young daughter of the house, Mary by name, was healed of a terrible torment, and thus she and her parents became grateful above all others.

It happened this way: it seems that Mary had been fragile and fearful from birth, and grew to womanhood scarcely able to care for her own needs. She was obsessed that she was unlovely, unworthy, and indeed we learned later that she even lacked the ability to enter into play with children.

As she became a woman she seemed to lack sympathy, had no tendency to comfort others, not even a wailing child. She deliberately hurt no one, but simply avoided everyone.

She was tormented with fear, lacked confidence, and doubted that she was in any way a good person. The demons of such fear and uncertainty haunted her until she felt that death alone could bring peace to her troubled soul.

The first time we were in Magdala as we walked along the thoroughfare, the quiet afternoon was pierced with a wail of sorrow. Hearing this, Jesus ran down an alley toward the sound of anguish. We followed closely.

Around the corner of a rear building we beheld in the street a distraught young woman beating her head against a stone gatepost. She tore at the flesh of her arms and legs determined to injure herself Jesus rushed to her. Enduring her flailing arms and kicking feet, he pinned her in his grasp until her agony passed. He held her in his arms when she fainted. He held her with his eyes closed and his chin as though fastened to the top of her head. He continued to hold her gently while his lips moved in silent words dismissing the evil which often reduced her to a living death.

Blood oozed from her scratched arms and legs, staining the Master's tunic. But he held her until she regained consciousness. Tone returned to her form, and she looked up with tear-filled eyes into the face of our Master. He continued to hold her tenderly.

The panic on her face, the tenseness of her limbs, the wildness of her tresses which in the frenzy had escaped from the shell comb which held her long hair in coils, everything about her calmed before our eyes.

"Master...?" s