Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 28,
2015 Cycle B
by Rev. Jose Maria Cortes, F.S.C.E.
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Sunday Reading Meditations
In the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus heals a woman with an incurable illness and brings a child back to life, thereby imparting meaning to human suffering and death. From human despair springs new hope.
The first reading clearly says that suffering and death do not come from God: “God did not make death, nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living” (Wis 1:13). God created man in his own image, for immortality. Death and suffering have a different origin: “[…] by the envy of the devil, death entered the world” (Wis 2:24). Thus, Scripture tells us that at the origin of death and suffering is the exercise of created freedom in rebellion against God. We cannot blame God for our situation.
Jesus encounters a father named Jairus, whose daughter is dying, and a woman suffering from a chronic and incurable disease. Without human hope, both Jairus and the outcast woman understood that only a miracle could help them.
Today’s Gospel reminds me of the story of Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha. According to legend, he was a prince and had been confined to a palace by his father, who feared that he would become an ascetic if he came into contact with the sufferings of life, according to a prediction. Only healthy and young people surrounded him. One day, he ventured out from the palace and came upon a sick man, an old man and a corpse. Shocked by what he saw, his desire for happiness was contradicted by reality. He concluded that the cause of suffering is our desire for happiness, which cannot be fulfilled. His solution was to extinguish that desire through meditation. It is as if we were thirsty and, instead of looking for water, we just tried to convince ourselves that we were not thirsty. We can compare the reaction of Siddhartha to that of the fox in Aesop’s fable, The Fox and the Grapes. The fox tries to eat the grapes from a vine but cannot reach them. Rather than admit defeat, he denies that they are desirable.
Jairus and the outcast woman acted differently. They brought their needs and sufferings to Christ, placing their hopes in him: “Seeing him he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, saying, ‘My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live’” (Mk 5:23).
For Jesus, sickness and death are not obstacles to happiness. They do not prevent man from achieving the complete fulfillment of his deepest desires. When Jesus heals the woman and resurrects the child, he shows us that there is no obstacle in our path toward destiny. Jesus does not extinguish desire. He fulfills it.
In the second reading, Saint Paul says: “For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). The eternal Word of God identified himself with our human condition. He shared our mortality to bring us his immortality.
Death entered the world due to the fact that the relationship between God and his creatures was broken. Imperishable life begins in the lives of those who want to live in a relationship with their Lord. The outcast woman touched Jesus from behind. It seemed like magic: “Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, ‘Who has touched my clothes?’” (Mk 5:30). God is not a sacred power from whom we can obtain favors in an anonymous way. We need to show our faces. Jesus wants to look us in the eyes: “She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction’” (Mk 5:34).
Let us try to put ourselves totally in the presence of God. Let us entrust what we are and what we need to him. Let us pray that cynicism never conquers our hearts. Let us pray that we, like the psalmist, may exclaim: “You changed my mourning into dancing; O LORD, my God, forever will I give you thanks” (Ps 30:11).
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.