The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to recall our experience of the personal touch of God in our lives in times of grief, suffering, and fear.
Faith and Healing
In the reading from the Second Book of Samuel, David mourns for Absalom.
“May the enemies of my lord the king and all who rebel against you with evil intent be as that young man!”1
Psalm 86 is a supplication for help against enemies.
* [Psalm 86] An individual lament. The psalmist, “poor and oppressed” (Ps 86:1), “devoted” (Ps 86:2), “your servant” (Ps 86:2, 4, 16), “rescued…from the depths of Sheol” (Ps 86:13), attacked by the ruthless (Ps 86:14), desires only God’s protection (Ps 86:1–7, 11–17).2
In the Gospel of Mark, a girl is restored to life and a woman is healed.
* [5:28] Both in the case of Jairus and his daughter (Mk 5:23) and in the case of the hemorrhage victim, the inner conviction that physical contact (Mk 5:30) accompanied by faith in Jesus’ saving power could effect a cure was rewarded.3
Andy Alexander, S.J. comments that this gospel can remind us to keep our eyes fixed on him each day, even in the midst of our busy ways of avoiding our need for him.
There are so many of us, around the world, with so many needs that his touch can really heal. At the very least, he can heal our doubts and fears, our dependencies on other stuff, our angers, our hurts, our judgments, our pride. Maybe, in this renewal of faith, we can just turn his direction and reach out for him. Maybe a loved one has gone to get him, in some way, to bring him to us, and it doesn't matter what obstacles lie in the way. Jesus wants to be with us.4
Don Schwager quotes “The long-suffering of parents,” by Peter Chrysologus (400-450 AD).
"Let us, if it is pleasing to you, speak for a moment of the pains and anxieties which parents take upon themselves and endure in patience out of love and affection for their children. Here, surrounded by her family and by the sympathy and affection of her relations, a daughter lies upon her bed of suffering. She is fading in body. Her father's mind and spirit are worn with grief. She is suffering the inward pangs of her sickness. He, unwashed, unkempt, is absorbed wholly in sorrow. He suffers and endures before the eyes of the world. She is sinking into the quiet of death... Alas! why are children indifferent to these things! Why are they not mindful of them? Why are they not eager to make a return to their parents for them? But the love of parents goes on nevertheless; and whatever parents bestow upon their children, God, the parent of us all, will duly repay." (excerpt from SERMON 33.2)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Mark 5:21-43 comments that hearing God calling us by the names daughter, son, or beloved can change our life. It can tell us that we are not alone. It can tell us that our Father in heaven sees us, loves us, and wants to help us. It can encourage us to turn to him for even deeper healing.
From the moment that she reached out to Jesus, this woman became the unofficial patron saint of the lonely. Now every one of us who feels abandoned or isolated can find ourselves in her story. Every day she calls out, “Reach out to Jesus! Come and let him call you his own. You belong to him!” “Jesus, I am so grateful that you call me your child!”6
Friar Jude Winkler explores the grief of David at the death of Absalom, even as the son had rebelled against the father. The woman is saved, rather than healed, by Jesus to reflect her faith as central to the transformation. Friar Jude reminds us that the young girl is reanimated, not resurrected, because she will die again.
Using the book of Job as an example, CAC teacher Brian McLaren suggests that God’s revelation through the Bible comes from the ongoing dialogue and relationship the Bible inspires between God and ourselves. To say that the Word (the message, meaning, or revelation) of God is in the biblical text, then, does not mean that you can extract verses or statements from the text at will and call them “God’s words.” It means that if we enter the text together and feel the flow of its arguments, get stuck in its points of tension, and struggle with its unfolding plot in all its twists and turns, God’s revelation can happen to us. We can reach the point that Job and company did at the end of the book, where, after a lot of conflicted human talk and a conspicuously long divine silence, we finally hear God’s voice.
I hope [this approach] will try to put us in the text—in the conversation, in the story, in the current and flow, in the predicament, in the Spirit, in the community of people who keep bumping into the living God in the midst of their experiences of loving God, betraying God, losing God, and being found again by God. In this way, by placing us in the text, I hope this approach can help us enter and abide in the presence, love, and reverence of the living God all the days of our lives and in God’s mission as humble, wholehearted servants…7
The inspiration of the Spirit may nudge us to step out in faith and touch Jesus in the people or experiences that accompany our journey.
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