Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Luke (4: 38-44) in which Jesus heals many and says, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns too, because that is what I was sent to do’. Fr Paul says in the stories of today’s reading there is a greater air of authority and a wider range than in the versions of the healings given by the other Gospel writers. Jesus does not raise Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand; he simply rebukes the fever and, as we hear, ‘immediately’ she stands up and gets back to work. Then in the next scene he heals every single person brought to him, and the demons are so uncomfortable that a sort of pandemonium breaks out among them as they rush around shouting that Jesus is son of God and Messiah. But again, Jesus quells it all with a simple rebuke. Next morning it is not simply Simon and his group who come out to the lonely place but again the crowds and Luke tells us that they try to restrain him, perhaps even grabbing hold of him to prevent him leaving them. Yet Jesus moves off and carries his mission away from Galilee into Judaea. There is a nobility and an air of command about this Jesus. For our reflection, Fr Paul says we might ask ourselves, in light of the healings in this Gospel, ‘What area of my life needs the healing touch of Jesus?’