Why God doesn't heal Dementia,Paraplegia etc?

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why doesn’t God heal severe illnesses ?? like Dementia and I’d add MND. Motor Neurone Disease, one of the cruelest, most hideous of all.
I don’t know. I wish he’d heal; my trigger fingers too, if you don’t mind me comparing my pathetically trivial problems.
I don’t know. Maybe you could read the Book of Job and get some good quality commentaries about the mystery of suffering.

God has a plan. A divine plan that is way beyond our comprehension. Trust Him. He knows what he’s doing . (this is the kind of commentary conclusion you might get)
 
The Divine Physician sometimes heals you while you are en route, but He guarantees to heal you when you have arrived home.

We are not home. We are pilgrims.
 
Personally I definitely don’t believe that all ilness is due to someone’s sin but unfortunately sometimes it can be.
For example if the mother drinks heavily during pregnancy the baby may end up with fetal alcohol syndrome with permanent cognitive issues.
It seems unjust that God would allow it to be this way but then a lot of life is unjust.
Cruel world.
 
It’s sad that God doesn’t do this.
We are taught to have compassion and help others on this earth in bad situations but even God won’t help those who can receive no help any other way.

It seems like it is all left to humans to come up with effective treatments but unfortunately usually once the damage is done it is too late.
How many years have scientists been trying to come up with treatments to reverse cognitive decline in Dementia,Alzheimer’s or Schizophrenia,or to cure MND or any other such cruel illnesses and they haven’t been even able to scratch the surface…
 
Do people really want to live to 150 or 200 even? I thought most Catholics would prefer to go to Heaven much earlier than that.
 
Blessings,
I was an ICU, CCU RN for 44 yrs. I saw some miracles before but never saw limbs grow, etc.
I have to go to sleep. I’ll elaborate later
In Christ’s love
Tweedlealice
 
Actually Jesus healed many men who couldn’t walk in the scriptures “is it easier to forgive this man’s sin or tell him to pick up his mat and walk”
 
The important thing is to never stop praying to Jesus. Even if for the 1000th time the prayer isnt answered who know about 1001 time? Never lose Hope! Miracles can and do occur people ive seen and experienced them myself! Be persistent its not a sin to keep asking.
 
Not really,but some people have gotten Dementia in their 50’s or even as early as in their 30’s sadly.
 
TK421 said:
Any bedridden and shut-in Catholic can be a fierce warrior through their submission to God in their suffering and their prayers.
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I never denied that. I only said that that kind of suffering should not be called “imitation of Christ”. I didn’t say that that kind of suffering is without value or cannot be offered up.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I sure don’t. I’m having enough trouble adjusting to the changes in the world that have occurred in just a fraction of that time.
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Same here. I am afraid of the pace of change. There is no indication of it slowing down, and if I just extrapolate into the future all the change that has happened over the past couple of decades, I don’t see how I will be able to cope with it. I’ve gotten into the habit of telling people pre-emptively that I’m old-fashioned and not really “with the times” (both true), because I can’t deal with all the assumptions people make anymore.
 
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Telstar said:
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Roguish:
Wait – we are imitating Christ only when we suffer persecution. We are not imitating Christ when we suffer as a consequence of our own sins.
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Where did you ever get that idea? I have to completely disagree with that whole premise. I’m completely baffled by it.
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Suffering due to sins cannot be in imitation of Christ, simply because Christ was without sin. I’m not making this point to ruffle feathers for the fun of it; it just follows from the term “imitation”. Christ’s suffering was due to persecution; when we are persecuted we imitate Him. Other suffering is still meaningful, and can still be offered up to God – a point I already acknowledged in another post – but it should not be termed “in imitation of Christ”.
Telstar said:
When we struggle against our own sinful tendencies, it inflicts some of the worst kinds of suffering on us.
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To struggle with one’s own sinful tendencies is tough indeed – it is an essential part of the Christian path, of course, and I am no stranger to it. Hoewver, it is not the worst kind of suffering, for the worst kind of suffering is persecution: to stand condemned for having become innocent.
Telstar said:
“the Way of the Cross”… “only begins when you have become innocent and the world condemns you for that.” . […] Can you, please, explain where that idea came from and what it’s supposed to mean?
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What it means is this: suffering due to one’s own sins gradually cleanses one of one’s sins. In other words, one is gradually restored to innocence. This process may or may not be completed within one’s lifetime. If it is completed, one has become a saint. If not, some sin remains and one will spend time in Purgatory. But there is another kind of suffering: one may be persecuted for the very fact that one has become innocent again (either fully as in a saint’s case, or partially in other cases). If we take the saint’s case as an example, clearly his suffering at the hands of persecutors cannot be due to sin anymore, because the saint is free of sin. It is due to the evil in the hearts of the persecutors. This kind of suffering is justly called the Way of the Cross, because its nature is identical to the suffering that Jesus experienced when He was condemned and put to death for being what He was: the perfectly sinless man.
 
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P.S. I am a little surprised that various people are puzzled and possibly even affronted by the point I’m making, because the recognition of suffering due to innocence is precisely what sets Christianity apart from various other religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism. With respect to suffering due to sin, these other religions’ teachings are identical to the Christian teaching. It is the Way of the Cross (including Crucifixion) that distinguishes Christianity, because it acknowledges and deals with the terrible problem that indeed one may suffer severely even after having paid fully for one’s sins. I wonder if it is people’s subconcious fear of this aspect of Christianity that makes them eager to refute my point – a fear that would be very understandable.
 
Given your choice of “churches”, Mike, maybe the better question you need to ask is why did Jesus have to die when he could have stayed on earth and cured everybody of everything? Just show up and Jesus would fix it!
Mike_from_NJ said:
Yet there are some who seemingly get cured before going to Heaven. And the dividing line is suspiciously as to what the human body can fix on its own and what it can’t.
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Don’t really understand the import of this question. Only answer I can have for that is God obeys his own laws, and natural law is one of those. There are those maladies that are incurable in nature, though we are given the intelligence to find cures for them. That’s our business, not God’s.
Mike_from_NJ said:
If God allegedly does answer prayers, and if the ones whose prayers get answered have ailments the body can fix, why is it that he can’t or won’t answer the prayers of the people who have ailments the human body can’t fix?
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Who says he doesn’t. Although the cure might not be physical. Your question has great merit, if you consider God merely a great cosmic vending machine; you know, put in the coins (prayers), pull the handle and out comes the expected goodies. Unfortunately, the God we know as Catholics (other Christians and Jews and probably Muslims) doesn’t work like that.
Mike_from_NJ said:
Why is God so stringent on only working one side of that dividing line?
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Not sure what side of the dividing line you are talking about. Why does God only cure the curable; well because it is curable, but then I don’t think God had much to do with it as did the human body itself and the medications man has found to cure those things that are now curable (although once they weren’t). If you are talking about curing the incurable as happens on rare occasions, I’ll have to ask him when I meet him.

My original post to which you asked these question referenced our Catholic belief in the perfection of the life to come in His dimension where, as Jesus said, “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, the wonder God has for man…” If you don’t believe in that God or that dimension, I’m sure my answers seem silly.
 
A second thought came to me on this question. Twenty years ago, I owned a business in a small city. Everyday when the whether was good, Arnold would come downtown and watch the people go by. He especially loved pretty girls. Now Arnold had a very intense form of cerebral palsy. He could not speak, only grunt, walked in that staggering manner particular to the disease, etc. Most of us merchants looked out for Arnold, bought him lunch, cold drinks, talked to him; one lawyer even shaved him on the park bench once a week. I think we did it because we understood that one day we would meet the Lord and he’d have his arm around Arnold, and would ask us what we did for the least of His brothers?
The upshot is, I wonder if Arnold could ever commit a sin that would deny him that future life in paradise? It is a Catholic teaching that mental illness and other conditions can render a person incapable of such a sin. God could never hold Arnold accountable for anything because his condition was such that Arnold was incapable of making such a choice. God has great mercy on the suffering. Arnold’s terrible condition here, was a “get out of jail free” ticket to paradise. His suffering was what many theologians have called a “gift” A “gift” of eternal life. We on the other hand, will have to answer to that Lord for our indifference and lack of charity and concern for those in such a plight. Might I have to work harder for that “end” that was guaranteed to Arnold?

A thought that is germane for us who believe in God and the teaching of Christ. Foolishness for those who don’t???
 
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Blessings!
There is a reason that illness comes. 1- in the Natural World, we abuse our bodies w vices. We aren’t responsible w cleanliness & get an infection. We are speeding on the road and have an accident. 2-In the Supernatural world, the car accident could be, a Supernatural event! Did the devil make you drive fast? Read the story of Job. There is Godly testing for our faithfulness. There is testing by pruning for our Spiritual growth.
When ill one could ask,”What do You wish me to learn Father?” Sometimes, we’re in a hospital to have contact w a nurse or doctor for Salvations sake . Or we have regressed. Our growth may have gotten stymied. We grow w discipline & study.
Recall how the man was born blind,for only the reason,that the Father can be glorified!
“WHAT AM I TO LEARN, FATHER. ?
In Christ’s Love
Tweedlealice
 
It’s not “subconscious fear”. I’m not even clear on what somebody would be “fearful” of.

It’s more that you seem to have made up an entire philosophy of suffering that as I have said, I have never read in any official teaching of the Church on suffering, nor heard taught by any Church authority anywhere.

ALL suffering is due to man’s sins because it all flows from the evil of original sin.

There is no requirement that we be sinless like Jesus in order for our suffering to be joined with His. We are never, ever going to reach that ideal. The saints would be aghast at the thought of themselves as being “free of sin”. In fact, many of them were laying on their deathbeds begging God to have mercy on them, a poor sinner.

This is all a load of crazy stuff you seem to have made up and arrived at yourself.
 
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Jesus healed as He had to establish that He was divine and possessed that power. Yet, He lamented those who required signs before they would believe. Today, we know Who He is and I see it as a test of our faith to endure suffering, which He established as the gold standard for eternal life.
 
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