Thirteenth
Sunday of Year (B)
(Wisdom
1:13-15; 2:23-24. 2nd.
Corinthians 8:7-9, 13-15; Saint Mark 5:21-43)
Today’s Gospel emphasises the importance and the
fruitfulness of a personal awareness of, and relationship with, Jesus.
We were told there, as you heard, that:
When Jesus had crossed again
(in the boat) to the other side (of the Sea of Galilee) a large crowd gathered
around Him, and He stayed close to the sea.
One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward. Seeing Him,
he fell at His feet and pleaded earnestly with Him, saying, “My daughter is at
the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well
and live.” He went off with him, and a
large crowd followed Him and pressed upon Him.
Now Saint John (John 4:46–48) has a similar story about a father seeking Jesus’ help for his son:
(Jesus) returned to Cana in Galilee, where He had made the water wine. Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to Him and asked Him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
And so, the synagogue leader pressed through a large crowd
surrounding Jesus by the sea and fell at Jesus’ feet; whereas, the royal
official simply went to Jesus and asked Him.
The depth of Jairus’ faith was most clearly shown by his publicly
falling at Jesus’ feet despite the general disapproval of Jesus by the
Pharisees and their Scribes so active and important in the synagogue ‘movement’
so to speak. That humble act of faith by
Jairus could easily have cost him his reputation and authority in the
synagogue.
The royal official, on the other hand, would seem to have
simply approached Jesus privately and asked Him to heal his son, thereby
meriting those words of Jesus:
Unless
you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.
Now let us
look more closely at the woman who had suffered from hemorrhages for 12 years,
an illness which had ritually prevented her from being able to worship in the
temple and even, perhaps, in the local synagogue.
Like Jairus,
she pushed through a crowd to get close to Jesus, but, because of the nature of
her ailment, she made no public gesture.
Now desperate after many notable
figures in medicine had failed her and cost all her money, and yet with a true
faith in the holiness and power of Jesus -- the only One, she now realized, Who
could possibly help her– she simply touched His cloak, possibly just the hem of
that long garment.
That,
however, was too much like magic for Jesus Who immediately made it known that
He was acutely aware that someone had purposefully touched His garments. He turned around to face the crowd, and looking
deliberately at those nearest to Himself, He thus compelled the already deeply
anxious and now most nervous woman to reveal herself to Him and make known the
whole truth.
Jesus then said
to her both privately and ‘sotto voce’:
Daughter,
your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.
Oh, Lord Jesus,
gentle and accommodating Saviour, how true of You are those prophetic words (Sirach
42:21–23):
Perennial
is His almighty wisdom; He is from all eternity one and the same, no need of a
counselor for Him! How beautiful are all His works even to the spark and the
fleeting vision!
Yes, dear
People of God, that was but a momentary incident absolutely unknown to the
crowd, and even now -- for us recalling it to our memory -- it is but a very
short glimpse of Jesus’ tender solicitude, “Daughter, your faith has made
you well”, and gentle encouragement, “go in peace and be healed of your
disease”, for a woman so long alone, anxious, and so deeply embarrassed. There were very few people to whom
Jesus could have shown that aspect of His humanity and divine love: for Jairus
in his moment of trial it was simply “Do not be afraid; just have faith”;
for the daughter of Jairus, it was “Talitha koumi, little girl arise”;
while for both parents, it was that very practical advice, “Give her
something to eat”.
What about
you, my dear fellow Catholics and Christians? Has Jesus, has God, ever spoken, whispered,
words of importance, or tender concern, words of guidance both encouraging and possibly
life-changing, to you? If so, then treasure
those words for the rest of your life, for they were and are words of life
for you.
If not? Why
not, do you think? All I can say is that
such words of Jesus are expressions of a certain closeness, loving concern,
intimate awareness. If you have never
heard the like yourselves that cannot be Jesus’, God’s, fault: we have all just heard
that Jesus on earth did speak to some people in such a way, and we all know
that God our Father in heaven and the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts, are
capable and do want to be that close to us, for us: Jesus is our Saviour,
God is our Father, the Paraclete is the Spirit given us expressly to divinize us and whisper in our very hearts!! And yet you have heard nothing, never sensed
anything, somehow never even thought or guessed that Jesus, the Father, or the
Spirit within you has ever said or intimated anything to you for your guidance
and help??
In such a
situation I must just urge you never to forget those words of Jesus to the
woman of Samaria:
God
is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)
Those are
words to think on, work at, and above all, pray over. For the Holy Spirit given us makes us Christians,
and He ever recalls Jesus’ teaching, for Jesus said ‘I am the Truth’. And the relationship He, the Spirit, establishes in us, Faith, is a P/personal relationship : a relationship, on our part, of humble
obedience; a relationship of steadfast, ever-clinging-on, trust; a relationship
of heart-warming and supremely committed love. A relationship on God's side expressed by a most loving Fatherly embrace, and an invitation to sit at the table set for the heavenly feast of God's family and kingdom.
