Within the cycle of catechesis corresponding to the Jubilee 2025, Leo XIV culminated the pathway of the public life of Jesus (encounters, parables and healings), dedicating four Wednesdays to healings: Bartimaeus; the paralytic at the pool; the hemorrhagic woman and the daughter of Jairus; and the deaf-mute.

Why do we need to let ourselves heal and contribute to healing others? Because we are vulnerable. Only those who lack experience or knowledge of themselves and others can be unaware of this need. Pope Leo XIV's catechesis this summer focused on some miracles of different healings of Jesus in the Gospel.

On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus meets Bartimaeus, a blind man and beggar (cf. General Audience, 11-VI-2025). His name means son of Timaeus, but also son of honor or admiration, which suggests to us that "Bartimaeus - because of his dramatic status, his loneliness and his immobile attitude, as St. Augustine observes - does not succeed in living what he is called to be".

Sitting by the side of the road, Bartimaeus needs someone to pick him up and help him out of his status and keep walking. And for that he does what he knows how to do: ask and shout. It is a lesson for us. "If you really want something," the Pope proposes to us, "do everything you can to get it, even when others scold you, humiliate you and tell you to give it up. If you really want it, keep shouting!"

In fact, the cry of Bartimaeus-"Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me" (Mk 10:47)-has become a well-known prayer in the Eastern tradition, which we too can use: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner".

Bartimaeus is blind, but, paradoxically, he sees better than the others and recognizes who Jesus is. At his cry, Jesus stops and calls out to him; "for," observes Peter's successor, "there is no cry that God does not hear, even when we are not aware that we are addressing him".

Curiously, Jesus does not approach him immediately, but, in order to revive Bartimaeus' life, "heurges him to get up, he trusts in his possibility of walking. This man can stand up, he can rise from his deadly situations". He is able to do so, but he must first throw off his cloak.  

This means, the Pope points out, that Bartimaeus must leave his security, his home, his defensive garment (which even the law recognized, cf. Ex 22:25), and present himself before Jesus in all his vulnerability. "Often what blocks us are precisely our apparent securities, what we have put on to defend ourselves and which, instead, prevents us from walking." 

It is noteworthy that Jesus asks what might seem obvious: "What do you want me to do for you?Because sometimes we don't want to be cured of our illnesses: we prefer to stay still so as not to take responsibility.

"Bartimaeus not only wants to see again, he also wants to regain his dignity! To look up, you have to raise your head. Sometimes people get blocked because life has humiliated them and they just want to regain their self-worth."

In any case, "what saves Bartimaeus, and each one of us, is faith". In healing Bartimaeus, Jesus gives him back his freedom of movement, without asking him to follow him. But Bartimaeus freely chooses to follow Jesus, who is the Way.

On another occasion, Jesus meets, near the door of the temple, a man who had been paralyzed for a long time (thirty-eight years), waiting to be healed by the waters of a pool called Bethzatha ("house of mercy"), considered thaumaturgical (cf. General Audience, June 18, 2025).
Pope Leo observes that this pool "could be an image of the Church, where the sick and the poor gather and where the Lord comes to heal and give hope".

That man is already resigned, because he does not succeed in diving into the pool when the water is agitated (cf. v. 7) and others go ahead of him and are cured. "In fact, what often paralyzes us is precisely disillusionment. We feel discouraged and run the risk of falling into laziness".

Jesus also addresses this paralytic with a question that may seem superficial: "Do you want to be healed?". A necessary question because the will to be healed could be lacking. This also applies to us: "Sometimes we prefer to remain in a sick condition, forcing others to take care of us. It is sometimes also a pretext for not deciding what to do with our life". 

Jesus financial aid him to discover that his life is also in his hands. He invites him to get up, to rise from his chronic status , and to pick up his stretcher. That stretcher represents his past illness, his history, which has led him to lie like a dead man. "Now," Pope Leo observes, "he can carry that stretcher and take it wherever he wants: he can decide what to do with his history! It is a matter of walking, assuming the responsibility of choosing which path to take." And this thanks to Jesus!

Introducing his catechesis on the hemorrhage and the daughter of Jairus, Leo XIV pointed out that in Christ "there is a power that we too can experience when we enter into relationship with his Person" (General Audience, 25-VI-2025). 

He began by noting the weariness of living that can threaten us in our complex reality, and that can lead us to become numb, numb and even feel blocked by the judgment of those who seek to label others.

Something like this appears in the Gospel passage where the stories of Jairus' daughter (a twelve-year-old girl about to die) and a woman with blood loss who seeks Jesus for healing are intertwined (cf. Mk 5:21-43).

The Pope notices "the father of the girl: he does not stay at home lamenting his daughter's illness, but goes out and asks for financial aid". Although he is the head of the synagogue, he does not impose himself, he does not lose patience and waits; and when they come to tell him that his daughter has died and it is useless to bother the Master, he still has faith and continues to wait.

His colloquium with Jesus is interrupted by the woman suffering from a flow of blood, who manages to approach Jesus and touch his cloak (v. 27).With great courage," Leo XIV considers, " this woman made the decision that changed her life: everyone kept telling her to remain at a distance, not to let herself be seen. They had condemned her to remain hidden and isolated". This can happen to us: "Sometimes we too can be victims of the judgment of others, who try to put us in a dress that is not ours. And then we are wrong and we do not manage to get out of it".

But that woman had in herself the strength to seek Jesus, at least to touch his clothes. Although a crowd pressed around the Master, she alone was healed, because of her faith, as St. Augustine observes: "The crowd presses, faith touches".

So it is with our faith, the Pope maintains: "Every time we make an act of faith directed to Jesus, a contact is established with Him and immediately His grace flows out of Him. Sometimes we do not realize it, but in a secret and real way grace reaches us and slowly transforms our life from within".

When the girl's father received the news that she had died, Jesus said to him, "Do not be afraid; it is enough for you to believe.Arriving at the house, in the midst of the people weeping and shouting, Jesus affirms: "The child is not dead, but sleeping" (v. 39). He enters where the girl is, takes her hand and says: Talitá kum, "Little girl, get up!". The girl gets up and starts walking.

In the face of this great miracle, Leo XIV points out: "That gesture of Jesus sample us that He not only heals every sickness, but also awakens from death. For God, who is eternal Life, the death of the body is like a dream. The true death is that of the soul: of this we must be afraid.

Finally, the Pope notes that Jesus tells the girl's parents to feed her: "a concrete sign of Jesus' closeness to our humanity. This is why we too must give spiritual nourishment to so many young people who are in crisis. But for this it is necessary that we nourish ourselves with the Gospel.

The Pope introduces a fourth sermon (cf. General Audience 30-VII-2025) on the healings of Jesus by looking at our world, which is permeated by a climate of violence and hatred that is opposed to human dignity. The "bulimia" of hyperconnection and the bombardment of images, sometimes false or distorted, overwhelms us and can subject us to a storm of contradictory emotions.

In this scenario, we may have the desire to turn off all contact and lock ourselves in silence: "the temptation to lock ourselves in silence, in a lack of communication in which, no matter how close we are, we are no longer able to tell each other the simplest and deepest things".

Mark's Gospel presents a man who does not speak (cf. Mk 7:31-37). And Leo XIV turns to us again: "Precisely as it could happen to us today, this man perhaps decided to speak no more because he did not feel understood, and to turn off every voice because he felt disappointed and hurt by what he had heard".

The Pope continues: "In fact, it is not he who goes to Jesus to be healed, but other people who lead him to the Master, those who are concerned about his isolation". And he adds that the Christian community has seen in these people also "the image of the Church, which accompanies every human being to Jesus so that he may hear his word". He also notes that the episode takes place in pagan territory, suggesting a context in which other voices tend to cover the voice of God.

As on other occasions, Jesus' behavior may seem strange at first, for he takes this person with him and takes him aside, thus seeming to accentuate his isolation.But," the Pope observes, " on closer inspection, this gesture financial aid us to understand what is hidden behind this man's silence and closedness, as if he (Jesus) had grasped his need for intimacy and closeness".

The teacher offers him first of all a silent proximity, through gestures that speak of a profound meeting : he touches his ears and his language; he does not use many words, but says only: "Open up" (in Aramaic, ephatà).

Leo XIV observes: "It is as if Jesus were saying to him: 'Open yourself to this world that frightens you! Open yourself to the relationships that have disappointed you! Open yourself to the life you have given up facing!'" because closing in on oneself is never the solution.

One final detail: after the meeting with Jesus, that person not only speaks again, but does so "normally". This may suggest, says the Pope, something about the reasons for his silence: perhaps he felt inadequate, misunderstood or misunderstood. 

So do we: "We all experience that we are misunderstood and do not feel understood. We all need to ask the Lord to heal our way of communicating, not only to be more effective, but also to avoid hurting others with our words."

In addition, Jesus forbids him to tell what has happened to him, as if to indicate that in order to bear witness to him, he must still travel a certain road: "To truly know Jesus, one must travel a road, one must be with him and also go through his Passion. When we have seen him humiliated and suffering, when we experience the saving power of his Cross, then we will be able to say that we have truly known him. There are no shortcuts to becoming a disciple of Jesus".