In today’s
Gospel 2 incidents are inter-twined. These
involve an official and a woman, both in need of Christ’s help. While on the way to assist one, He’s
interrupted by the other. That’s very
typical of life! We start to carry out
our plans and get diverted by someone making unexpected demands on us –the
phone rings, your child has a fall and hurts himself. We can either resent and ignore the
interruption, or we can follow Christ’s example and use it as an opportunity
for doing further good. He made time to
speak to the sick woman, rather than dismiss her, because he was too busy to
attend to her needs.
Today’s Gospel is about 2 people in
desperate need. Both appeal to Jesus
for help. Their faith in him is
remarkable, especially the official’s.
Even though his young daughter was on the point of death he believed
Jesus could save her. He showed amazing
trust in Christ’s power over life and death!
Next there’s the woman who had been suffered
from bleeding for 12 years. Her ailment
would have rendered her ritually unclean and excluded her from the
community. But so great was her faith in
Jesus she believed that she would be cured simply by touching His garments,
without her even having to ask Him to cure her. Even though she was cured by touching His
garments Jesus had time to stop and speak to her, and address her as
‘daughter.’ He always has time for
each one of us. He recognised the
greatness of her faith in Him, which had led to His healing her.
We now come to
the climax of this drama. When Jesus
reached the home of Jairus’ dying girl he was told that He was too late. She had already died; the official mourners
were already playing their instruments.
Dismissing them, He said that the girl slept and was not dead. Naturally, that caused great derision because
the girl was certainly dead, and Jesus seemed to be very insensitive to their
grief. But since Jesus intended to
restore her life, after she’d been dead for only a short while, her condition
was more like sleep than death. In
John’s Gospel Jesus uses the same language of Lazarus, who was already dead and
buried. But, knowing that He would soon
restore both the girl and Lazarus to life, their deaths seemed more like
sleep. Taking the girl’s hand, He
commanded her to get up, saying, “Little girl arise.” In that simple gesture Jesus, the source of
life, grasped death and was triumphant. That foreshadowed His own victory over
death, through His crucifixion and resurrection. As she walked about Jesus told her parents to
give her something to eat. That was the
gesture Jesus would use to show He had truly risen from the dead.
Today’s Gospel shows us, firstly, that
by curing the sick woman Jesus had come to heal us damaged people and give us
the fullness of life, which would finally be achieved when we are raised to
glory in the resurrection of the body.
This particular miraculous cure shows that He has come to break down the
barriers which isolate people and enable them to join the community.
But in today’s Gospel Jesus proved that
not only did He have power to cure the sick, but could even raise the girl to
life. He is master of life and death and
will raise us bodily from the grave to share in the glory of His resurrection.
But we must share in the wonderful faith
of the two people in today’s Gospel.
Against human logic they believed in Jesus and turned to Him. One of them, Jairus, gives us a great example
of the power of prayer for ourselves and for others, while the sick woman shows
the importance of reaching out to Jesus, even when we can’t put our thoughts
and longing into words. Jesus will
reward such faith with the fullness of life.
Isidore O.P.
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