Aware of the Possibilities of Intimacy

In the Roman Catholic Lectionary, today, the psalmist sets the theme of God as gracious and merciful. It seems that we are continually in need of hearing this truth. Perhaps we would prefer to deal with a divinity that was more ‘human’ and made rules that could be accounted for and a person would know his ‘mark’ in the eternal grade book and we could aim at a ‘pass’’ The prophet Hosea tells of the desire of God to renew the Covenant with the people who had drifted away to ‘other gods’. The desire of the Divine to restore life and intimacy is told by Matthew through the healings in today’s text. The action of Jesus, in both cases, is contrary to the expectations of most of the observers. The faith of synagogue official and the woman who is healed open their lives to the possibility of an intimate healing encounter with Jesus.