God, our creator, is at work every moment of our lives. Today’s Scriptures offer us the opportunity to reflect on the many ways in which God has worked in the lives of people as his plan for our salvation unfolds throughout history even until today, right here, with each of us. In the second reading and the Gospel in particular, we see how the healing ministry of Jesus affected the lives of the people of his time and affects our lives as well, if only we have faith.
Our first reading from the Book of Wisdom recalls that God is the author of life. God created and fashioned all creatures – including us – that we might have life. And we – men and women – were created in the image and likeness of God. God made us, as we hear in this reading, to be imperishable. But, since the time of Adam and Eve, we have tried to play God and struggled with the temptations of the devil, who invites us to join his kingdom rather than God’s. The author of the Book of Wisdom is clear – that our choice is life or death. We can choose to follow God and his life-giving ways, or we can belong to the devil’s company and experience death. Hell has been called an endless dying; how apt a description and it should catch our attention.
In today’s second reading, we hear Saint Paul urge the Corinthians to choose life by imitating the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ. The gracious act that Jesus performed was his incarnation – infinite God becoming limited man; how gracious the son of God was to do that for us. Saint Paul asks the Corinthian community of believers to follow the Master in his ways so that the community would be drawn closer to God through Jesus. Jesus became poor so that by this poverty we could become rich. Saint Paul tells us to imitate Jesus. Share our abundance with others so their needs may be met and we will both be enriched. So many of your do that in so many ways throughout the year. Just last week, I received a letter from Fr. Thorne, the pastor of St. Martin dePorres, our sister parish, acknowledging your extraordinary generosity after his recent visit; our collection was the highest ever. That’s just one example of your generous care of those in need and, as St. Paul commended the Corinthians, I commend you.
Today’s Gospel reading offers us two very concrete examples of Jesus doing what Saint Paul refers to as a living out of his gracious act. Jesus – who is God-made-man – pours out his healing power in two instances so that others may be restored to the fullness of life. First, we begin to hear the story of the synagogue official whose daughter is ill to the point of death. Then, inserted in the middle of this story, we hear of the woman who has suffered from hemorrhages for 12 years. She is literally bleeding to death.
Jesus knew the hardships of his people because he was one with them. In turn, Jesus was compassionate to all those in need of God’s love and healing power. Both the girl and the woman were healed by Jesus because of faith – the faith of the girl’s father and the faith of the woman with the hemorrhages. Both received healing by the power of touch. The woman reached out and touched Jesus and Jesus took the girl by the hand. In both instances, Jesus’ healing, life-giving power flowed out to them.
We are invited to share in Jesus’ healing power reaching out to us, too. But, we must have faith. Without faith, we are unable to participate in the powerful life flowing from Jesus into our lives. Faith requires staying in touch with Jesus, even if we, like the woman with the hemorrhages, must push through the unbelieving crowd who discounts religion or the promise of the resurrection. And, when we struggle to find Jesus, he encourages us to persevere. “Daughter, your faith has saved you,” he tells the woman, and he now says to us. When we falter in our faith – and all of us do – we hear Jesus say to us, as he said to the girl’s father, “Don’t be afraid, just have faith.”
St. Mark gives us these two moving miracle stories not to amaze us but to invite us to stir up our faith and to seek Jesus. Only he can satisfy our desire for the fullness of life. Whether it is in the celebration of the sacraments – especially the Eucharist that we celebrate at this very moment – or in our exercise of the corporal works of mercy toward our neighbor, Jesus shows us the importance of a faith that is lived and experienced in our everyday lives. Remember that God created us in his image, and God saw that it was very good. God calls us to life and the fullness of life. Let us put our faith in God and generously share our blessings with everyone we meet, as our God is generous with us.