From the Feast of Saint Luke the Physician

Every year this passage comes up at the Feast Day of Saint Luke the Evangelist, on October the 18th (in the Western calendar, anyway). And every year I vow again to someday paint the whole passage - or maybe just that one verse - onto the upper part of my kitchen and back hallway so that I can be reminded all the time - God believes in organic medicine. It's true! And since God created the medicines out of earth, the sensible will not despise them.

I like the products at New Chapter Organics at lot. And fortunately, one need not do a PhD amount of effort for finding out what medicines from the earth are good for what situation. There is more readily available information now than ever. Sure, sure, if your spleen ruptures or a car runs into you, you need an emergency room and all that modern and more conventional medicine can provide. No one thinks you can repair a broken bone with an herb compress. But hormone imbalances? Yeah - the earth's got your cure. Trouble relaxing? Visit the health food section and look at what they've got to offer you. Young adult offspring entering an adult life in a difficult enough way that you're the one with the spasms in your neck? Try this one, and get some sleep: MyoCalm P.M., by Metagenics. And for heaven's sake, don't buy your vitamins at the local big box store. It's worth it to get the real thing.

Ecclesiasticus 38:1-4,6-10,12-14

Honor physicians for their services,

for the Lord created them;

for their gift of healing comes from the Most High,

and they are rewarded by the king.

The skill of physicians makes them distinguished,

and in the presence of the great they are admired.

The Lord created medicines out of the earth,

and the sensible will not despise them.

And he gave skill to human beings

that he might be glorified in his marvelous works.

By them the physician heals and takes away pain;

the pharmacist makes a mixture from them.

God's works will never be finished;

and from him health spreads over all the earth.

My child, when you are ill, do not delay,

but pray to the Lord, and he will heal you.

Give up your faults and direct your hands rightly,

and cleanse your heart from all sin.

Then give the physician his place, for the Lord created him;

do not let him leave you, for you need him.

There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians,

for they too pray to the Lord

that he grant them success in diagnosis

and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.