Lectionary: 324
Reading 1
Heb 12:1-4
Brothers and sisters:
Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us
and persevere in running the race that lies before us
while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus,
the leader and perfecter of faith.
For the sake of the joy that lay before him
Jesus endured the cross, despising its shame,
and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.
Consider how he endured such opposition from sinners,
in order that you may not grow weary and lose heart.
In your struggle against sin
you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 22:26b-27, 28 and 30, 31-32
R. (see 27b) They will praise you, Lord, who long for you.
I will fulfill my vows before those who fear him.
The lowly shall eat their fill;
they who seek the LORD shall praise him:
“May your hearts be ever merry!”
R. They will praise you, Lord, who long for you.
All the ends of the earth
shall remember and turn to the LORD;
All the families of the nations
shall bow down before him.
To him alone shall bow down
all who sleep in the earth;
Before him shall bend
all who go down into the dust.
R. They will praise you, Lord, who long for you.
And to him my soul shall live;
my descendants shall serve him.
Let the coming generation be told of the LORD
that they may proclaim to a people yet to be born
the justice he has shown.
R. They will praise you, Lord, who long for you.
Alleluia
Mt 8:17
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Christ took away our infirmities
and bore our diseases.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Mk 5:21-43
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side,
a large crowd gathered around him, and he stayed close to the sea.
One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward.
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.”
He went off with him
and a large crowd followed him.
There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years.
She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors
and had spent all that she had.
Yet she was not helped but only grew worse.
She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd
and touched his cloak.
She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.”
Immediately her flow of blood dried up.
She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.
Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him,
turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?”
But his disciples said to him,
“You see how the crowd is pressing upon you,
and yet you ask, Who touched me?”
And he looked around to see who had done it.
The woman, realizing what had happened to her,
approached in fear and trembling.
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.”
While he was still speaking,
people from the synagogue official’s house arrived and said,
“Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?”
Disregarding the message that was reported,
Jesus said to the synagogue official,
“Do not be afraid; just have faith.”
He did not allow anyone to accompany him inside
except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.
When they arrived at the house of the synagogue official,
he caught sight of a commotion,
people weeping and wailing loudly.
So he went in and said to them,
“Why this commotion and weeping?
The child is not dead but asleep.”
And they ridiculed him.
Then he put them all out.
He took along the child’s father and mother
and those who were with him
and entered the room where the child was.
He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,”
which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!”
The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around.
At that they were utterly astounded.
He gave strict orders that no one should know this
and said that she should be given something to eat.
REFLECTION
SOURCE: Creighton.edu (by Kevin Kersten, S.J., Creighton University School of Law)
THEME: Faith and the Life-giving Power of God in Christ
Chapter four of Mark’s gospel narrates four remarkable episodes which, one right after the other, manifest the Lord’s power to give life: His power over chaotic nature (He calms a life-threatening storm), destructive demons (He casts out a legion of evil spirits from the Gerasene demoniac, giving back to him a normal life of sanity), debilitating illness (He stops the twelve year flow of blood in the woman who touched the hem of His garment, removing the threat to her life and restoring her capacity to bring new life to the world in childbirth), and death itself (He restores life to Jairus’s 12 year-old daughter who had died earlier in the day).
Today’s gospel narrates the last two stories, which Mark weaves together into one. Jesuit scripture scholar Daniel Harrington notes that both deal with women in life-and-death situations, both women are called “daughter,” and both need salvation or rescue from their situation. Onlookers in both stories are skeptical of Jesus’s power, but they are dumbfounded when, before their eyes, that power is unleashed: the woman is healed, and the dead child is once again alive.
In both narratives faith is the key to triggering and focusing the Lord’s miraculous power. In both cases, faith (the faith of the debilitated woman, and the faith of Jairus, the desperate father of the dead child) is the channel through which the Lord goes to work restoring life.
In both stories, then, the life-giving power of God – in Christ, through Him, and in Him – breaks into and works through the particular realities and felt experiences of human life – especially life compromised and even lost. Both reveal that the God of Jesus Christ is the God of the living – not the dead. They reveal that the living God is life giving, manifested in Jesus who responds to those who approach Him with faith – like the woman pleading to be healed, like the father who begs for the life of his daughter, and like us when we must deal with pain, suffering and death.
Both stories also anticipate the Lord’s resurrection, when on account of His passion and death, He is raised by the Father and thereby reveals that when life confronts death, it overcomes it. Surpasses it. Conquers it. In contemplating the resurrection we can encounter the very fullness of life: the risen Christ – who abides with us now to bring us to eternal life and, in the meantime, to give holy meaning to pain, suffering, and death when we encounter them in faith along the path of our lives on this earth.
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