24th Sunday after Pentecost; Post-feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God; The Holy Great-Martyr Catherine (310-13); the Holy Great-Martyr Mercurius (249-51)
Nativity Fast.
Read
Ephesians 2:14-22; Luke 8:41-56
Today’s Gospel offers us in the healing of the woman with the issue of blood and the raising of Jairus’ daughter two models of great faith. The woman is thinking, hoping, believing that “If I can just get near Him, if I can just touch Him, I will be healed.” Jairus is probably having similar thoughts: “If I can humble myself before Him and offer my petition that the teacher might save my dying daughter, He will heal her from her sickness.”
It also presents us with two corresponding examples of unbelief. Upon realizing that power had left Him by way of the healing of the woman, Our Lord asks “Who was it that touched me?” Peter’s response is in a way a mild rebuke of Jesus, he in essence says “What do you mean, of course someone touched you. You are surrounded by a crowd of people.” When the crowd hears that Jairus’ daughter has died, Our Lord stands alone in His infinite wisdom declaring that she is only sleeping. What is the crowd’s response? They mock and laugh out of disbelief, a reaction that reveals an ignorance of Our Lord’s power to heal. A similar crowd will mock, and laugh, and spit at Our Lord on His way to His crucifixion, revealing an even greater ignorance of Our Lord’s power to save.
These parallels of great belief and of disbelief in this passage parallel our own lives of faith. In our daily struggles we humble ourselves before the Lord with our petitions, our worries, our pains, and in our hope that God will act in our lives and heal us. Like the woman with the issue of blood we hope that in coming to Our Lord He will heal us. “Lord, if I can just touch You, I will be made well.” At other times in our lives we are the jeering crowd or the friend who doesn’t understand and we doubt God, we doubt His presence in our lives, and we often turn away.
Brothers and sisters, in the highs and lows of our walk with Christ, we must remember that we cannot always see fully how the Lord is acting in our lives, yet His is still powerfully present. If we desire to be healed we simply have to touch Him. But Our Lord in His abundant mercy doesn’t only permit us to touch Him, He invites us in the Holy Eucharist to be mystically joined to His saving body and blood. This great mystery of salvation not only heals us, but it conforms us to Him so that we might go out into the world and bring healing to others in His name.