Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 1, 2018: Little girl, I say to you, arise!

 Little girl, I say to you, arise! 

 Who is the source of your life? 

   The Book of Wisdom tells us that God created us not for death but for life, for he fashioned all things that they might have being.  We are creatures formed in the image of the Lord’s own nature, created that we might be his representatives, his face in the world, his revelation on earth.  But although God formed us to be imperishable, it is only through righteousness, through right relationship with God, that we can come to participate in eternal life and live in the perfection of God’s love.  In Psalm 30, the psalmist recognizes God’s life-giving role in his own existence:  you brought me up from the netherworld; you preserved me… We were meant to be eternal, if only we open ourselves to this possibility and act according to God’s will. 

   Jesus, too, is a life-giving force in chapter five of Mark’s Gospel.  In the intercalated stories of the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the healing of the woman afflicted with hemorrhages, we have two instances of Jesus restoring life to those who are dead, or as good as dead.  When the woman, who has been afflicted for twelve years and therefore ritually unclean, dares to penetrate the crowd and touch his cloak, Jesus stops, seeking to identify the person who has touched him.  This moment of contact affects him, and profoundly so; it is important to Jesus that he encounter the woman as a human being, a being to whom his touch has restored life.  Indeed, he engages with her, affirming her suffering, her hope, and her great faith.  Likewise, Jesus meets Jairus’ daughter where she is, in death, and raises her to new life – Little girl, I say to you, arise! – restoring her to community, to relationship, transmitting by his touch the love of God that is life-giving.

   It is not only through his ministry on earth that Jesus gives life; Paul reminds the Corinthians that Jesus became poor so that by his poverty, they might become rich, and share the wealth that is their very existence, their life, with all around them.  Only in so doing, only by imitating Jesus himself, his sacrifice and his love, can they come to know that love in its perfection.  Jesus came that we might have life; it’s up to us to reach out and touch the cloak of Christ, to open to that life in all its plenitude, to embrace his life-giving love, and to know, once and for all, the source of our life.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  www.wordle.net

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 28, 2015: Who touched me?

Who touched me?

How can human contact break down the barriers that separate us?

Every culture has its taboos:  forbidden practices or behaviors, prohibitions based on notions of morality or danger or even taste.  When, in Mark’s Gospel the woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years makes her way through the crowd in order to touch Jesus’ cloak, she is doing the unthinkable:  she is rendering Jesus unclean because to touch a woman in this condition was taboo, and she herself is ostracized because of it; no relationship is possible for her.  Yet Jesus is not angered by her touch nor is he concerned with ritual impurity; for him, the woman’s great faith trumps any socially constructed prohibition, and he heals her: Daughter, your faith has saved you, he says.  Likewise, because of the great faith of her father, Jesus touches the dead daughter of Jairus, breaking down the barriers, bringing her back into community, back into relationship. Jesus offers both the woman and the girl a new sense of belonging; his generosity imparts love to their lives, proclaiming the love that appears to be in such short supply.  He has done what the narrator of Psalm 30 so appreciates:  you brought me up from the netherworld, the psalmist says, You changed my mourning into dancing.  You brought me back into relationship, in other words; your touch has made me whole.

We often create a bubble or barrier around ourselves:  those who are within the barrier are acceptable, while those without are not worthy of our attention, not worthy of contact with us.  Yet Paul tells the Corinthians that their responsibility is not just to those within their elite Corinthian bubble but also to needy Christians of other communities as well:  your abundance at the present time should supply their needs, he tells them.  Christianity is about support for and contact with all, not just some, so that all may have life.  Because, as Wisdom reminds us, God fashioned all things that they may have being, and the creatures of the world are wholesome.  Division, separation, barriers, walls:  these are all human constructions imposed on the goodness of Creation against the will of God.  It is our job to reach out to others, to destroy the barriers that separate us, to make the fundamental connections that ensure relationship, so that we might enjoy that relationship, both with other and with God.

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.

Image source:  Wordle