HOMILY WEEK 04 02 – Year II
On Faith, Compassion, Grieving and Healing
(2 Sam 18:9-19:3; Ps 86; Mk 5:21-43)
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“Believe, have compassion, heal and grieve.”
These words capture the essence of the readings today and provide us with this message: Come to Jesus with faith, have compassion, experience healing, and be empowered to grieve.
In the gospel, faith is what strikes us first – the faith of the synagogue leader and that of the woman with an illness. The leader of the synagogue has faith in Jesus to save his dying daughter, and when news comes that she has passed away, Jesus encourages him to not be afraid – only believe. On her part the woman suffering with a haemorrhage believes that if she can only touch the fringe of Jesus’ cloak, she will be made well. And after she told Jesus the whole truth, he tells her to go in peace for her faith has made her well. The message for us is clear – we also need to come to Jesus with faith that he can heal us in any way that we need healing: physical, mental, emotional or spiritual.
What also emerges from this gospel is the compassion of Jesus for a distraught man about to lose his daughter to death, and a desperate woman who has been suffering an illness for twelve long years that has rendered her unclean and unable to participate in normal life in society. Jesus models compassion for us, and teaches us to be more compassionate with those who are suffering, not just illness, but loneliness and loss. There is also a suggestion here that, in wanting to know who had elicited power from him, the compassion of Jesus doesn’t settle for just a miracle, but also desires a relationship with the person who was healed.
Another aspect to consider is the revelatory nature of Jesus’ miracles. They reveal who he is, and how he wants us to respond. Jesus does not ordinarily heal toothaches, headaches, stomach aches or appendicitis. His healings for the most part have to do with the senses: he heals the blind so they can see God’s glory, the mute so they can praise God, the deaf so they can hear God’s word, the lame so they can walk and serve God.
In today’s gospel, he is faced with a twelve-year old girl who would die a virgin and never realize her potential to be fruitful and bring forth life, and a woman who for twelve years was unclean and unable to worship God in the Synagogue. In both cases, Jesus becomes the only one who can restore to them their life-giving potential and a purposeful life. It is the same with us – Jesus wants to heal us so that we also can fulfill our purpose in life, to worship him and serve him by having compassion on the suffering of others.
The first reading is, unusually, not that connected to the gospel, except by the thread of faith that empowered David to mourn and grieve the loss of his son. That he does in a very public, open manner. The text tells us that King David was deeply moved and wept. Joab is told that the king is weeping and mourning and grieving for his son.
There is a lesson here for those of us who may be stuck in grief. It is important to turn that grief into good grieving, and that grieving into a more public mourning, sharing our grief with others and receiving their support. Mary Magdalene is our model here. When Jesus appeared to her, Jesus had to tell her not to cling to him, for he had changed, had risen to new life, so she could not have him back the way she had related to him before. He spent forty days teaching her and the apostles to grieve and mourn his loss. If they did that well, and let him ascend to the Father, then he would be able to send his Spirit to be with them in a new way. They would not miss him any more – he would be with them, in them. They got the message, went back to Jerusalem filled with joy, were filled with his Spirit at Pentecost, and the Church was born.
On January 27th, my sister-in-law posted a message on Facebook sharing that day would have been the 50th anniversary of her marriage to my brother Louis, who died of cancer nine years ago. She has grieved like King David and moved on in her life, yet at moments like those, still feels keenly the loss of her husband, and as a widow, the need for the understanding and support of others. Once again, I needed that reminder of this critical day in her life, even though I have a list of not just birthdays and marriage anniversaries, but also the anniversaries of deaths, and am trying to be more attentive to these occasions. It is true – if we don’t celebrate, we forget, and lose opportunities to practice our faith and be compassionate as our heavenly Father is compassionate.
The Eucharist pulls all this together – faith, compassion, healing and grieving. We believe that Jesus is present in Word and Sacrament, we experience his compassion and healing even as we celebrate with faith, we are keeping vigil until Jesus comes again, and we are empowered go out and share his compassion with others.
May our celebration strengthen our faith in the power of Jesus to heal us not just physically but also our attitudes such as neglectfulness, empower us to grieve and mourn the losses in our lives, and be more attentive to how others need our support.
