If I But Touch His Garment, I Will Be Cured
In this Sunday’s Gospel we have one of Jesus’ healing miracles. It’s REAL, it’s not one of Jesus parables. It concludes with Jesus insisting that the on-lookers tell no one. But, doesn’t it seem to you that it would be impossible to obey? To hide what some refer to as “a messianic secret”?
Have you ever experienced the desperate feeling of the hemorrhagic woman – or known someone who did, or does? The feeling like the bucket of life has a hole in it? That it leaks faster than you (or the person you are thinking of) can fill it? No matter what you do, how hard you work, where you go, what you try, you just can’t fill it up. Work, leisure activities, friends, family, community and even prayer somehow leave you feeling empty, restless, and searching. You can’t seem to collect enough in your bucket. The outpouring is greater than the inflow. You are left drained – tired and weak, frustrated and hopeless, angry and resentful, sorrowful and grieving, full of fear that you will never be as fulfilled as you figured you would be by the age you are now. If you know what that’s like, perhaps you know how the hemorrhaging woman felt.
In the Gospel, we don’t know her name. We don’t know where she came from. She’s just another face in the crowd. What we do know is that she is sick, desperate, and in need. She has been bleeding for 12 years. That’s 4,380 days. In all that time no one has been able to help her. She’s spent all she had – energy as well as money. She’s only gotten worse. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year it’s been the same.
This woman’s condition is more than physical. She’s losing more than blood. She’s losing her life: its warmth, vitality, and fruitfulness. That is more than a physical condition – it’s a spiritual matter, too.
At one level this is a story of just one woman. Looked at from another level, it’s our human story. Her story is our story. It’s not only about women. It is as much about men. Drained of life, we go through the motions. We’re alive but not really living. Such people feel disconnected, isolated, and alone.
I suspect the bleeding women spent many of the last 4,380 days thinking, “As soon as.…” This particular day, however, something is different. Something in her has changed, it’s shifted. She has heard about Jesus. She’s heard about his miracles. How he’s cast out demons, healed the sick, calmed the sea.
We don’t know what it is she’s heard about Jesus but it was enough to make her believe in him. She was desperate. She can’t wait any longer for others to fix her life. Today she would not allow fear to discourage her. She’d risk the crowd’s ridicule. She’d literally take matters into her own hands. In her heart she knows, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
Instantly a connection is made and a relationship recognized. Life no longer leaked out of her. No, not now. Life was flowing into her, filling her with confidence and the warm touch of a love recognized. And, Jesus knew that power had flowed out of Him. “Who touched my clothes?” For us, we may need professional help, or a spiritual director, or a close friend to help us through the maze, but Jesus does offer each of us “life without hemorrhaging.” We don’t have to live drained of life. We, too, can walk the path of peace fully alive if we but risk reaching beyond the circumstances of our lives.
As Penelope Wilcock has Jesus saying in her book Into the Heart of Advent: “Someone coming close to me, and touching me, can happen in a church undeniably. But it might not, and it can equally happen anywhere else. If you’re looking for me, sooner or later you’ll find me, because I’ll be looking for you too. We’ll find each other wherever you happen to be” (page 64). These very attributes and characteristics of his life are the garment he wears. And, the garment is gently blown by the breeze of love, flowing out, wavering right in front of us. We just have to reach out to touch. The woman said: “If I but touch his garment, I will be cured.”
When you feel you are living a drained life, call upon this woman in the crowd to intercede for courage to reach out and touch the clothes of Christ. Do whatever it takes to let Jesus transfuse you with his life, love, and power. Touch and be healed and go in peace. [Taken from THIS DAY, 13th Sunday 2015.] I have a plaque in my office that’s a good reminder for moments of uncertainty; moments when our last, and best, choice is to “reach out and touch His garment.” It reads: “Sometimes, you just have to take the leap, and build your wings on the way down.”
~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB, Prioress
First Reading Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24 Second Reading 2 Cor 8:7,9,13-15
Gospel Reading Mark 5:21-43 ( shorter form, Mark 5:21-24,35b-43)
Continue ReadingThe Transformative Power of Communal Contemplation and Dialogue – Webinar
The Transformative Power of Communal Contemplation and Dialogue
Presented by Sr. Nancy Sylvester, IHM
Date: Saturday, June 26, 2021
Time: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm ET via Zoom
Registration Link Below
As we emerge out of a time of chaos, the healing of our future requires new responses. The next stage of our evolutionary journey calls forth in us a consciousness with greater capacity for complexity and diversity. More and more we will be engaging with people who think differently than we do.
How to understand and engage people with multiple perspectives is critical. Good communication skills are needed and when wedded with the power of contemplation—individually and communally—it transforms who we are and how we relate to each other and the world.
This program will provide a framework to understand the time we are in and the power of contemplative prayer. Participants will practice listening and speaking from a contemplative heart so that we might find new and imaginative ways of healing the future.
Invite friends! This program is free and open to all.
Registration
(Click on the link above to register for the webinar)
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“They Took Jesus Just As He Was”
I’m sometimes curious about the details that evangelists choose to include. There are two details that intrigue and amuse me a bit in this reading. The evangelist says, “They took Jesus with them in the boat JUST AS HE WAS.” What is being left unsaid? Was Jesus half-asleep, half dressed, still talking to the crowd? They took him JUST AS HE WAS. If only we could be that accepting of others? Take them just as they are. Not merely tolerating them, their behaviors and their attitudes – their differences – but really, full-heartedly accepting them and their individuality.
We hear and read studies on generational differences and expectations. Our community’s median age hovers around 75. Candidates will come to community with their own, well-defined personalities. Most often they will come having been raised or worked in a society far different from the environment most of us were raised in. For the first time in our country, four generations are working side by side. I heard the comment on TV the other day that today’s young adults are not interested in perfecting existing athletic records. They want to try new – even risky – endeavors. Always striving to set new records. The 18-year-old who won first place on the U.S. Women’s Swim Team exceeded the previously set speed record for the 100-meter race. This desire to try something new does not necessarily condemn the past nor belittle its achievements although sometimes the drive to make “my mark” can give that impression.
Different values, experiences, styles, and activities can create misunderstandings and frustrations, tis true. Or, it can serve to enrich our lives. The interpretation of key elements of our life may differ … Consider, for example: balance of life, work ethic, fair share division of chores. It doesn’t mean the living out of values will fight with each other. There need not be a right-wrong conflict – there are shades of gray and more than one way to be “right.” The bottom line is: it’s up to each and all of us whether we accept, fight, deny or, as they say: “roll with the punches.” By the event of the past week (we lost two family members of S. Elizabeth to drowning), we’ve been made keenly aware of the power of rip tide currents. You can’t right it, you must lean into it, let it toss you about until it calms down and release its hold on you. Change is in the air!
Generational change does require awareness, sensitivity and a genuine effort to develop mutual trust and respect. Awareness is the first step. A true attitude of open-handed and open-heartedness is needed not simply to bridge the generations but rather to blend the generations. Goodwill can cover a multitude of situations but it takes education and a sincere personal effort to make us ONE community in mind, heart and spirit. Remember what the evangelist says: “They took Jesus just as he was.”
The other detail in his Gospel that I find curious is the passing remark that Jesus was asleep on a cushion. Why was it so important to point out He had a cushion? Makes it sound like not everyone had a cushion – cushions must not have lined the hull of the boat like water-proof safety floats might be seen today. Having a cushion implies comfort, doesn’t it? Jesus was sleeping like a baby unaware of the turmoil around him. Or was He? Was he peeking at them through a half-open eye? Was his ear attentive to the murmuring about him and his seemingly uncaring attitude?
I assume they were all guys … women would have grabbed anything nearby to cover and protect Jesus from the sloshing waves. When the storm increased and the boat rocked, Jesus’ friends roused him, with telling words. They are familiar enough to dare to wake him with words of reproach, questioning his care for them. They are hurt by His non-responsiveness to their needs. Reminds me of the Martha – Mary incident … and maybe sometimes ours “Why doesn’t she get up off her duff and help me … can’t she see I could use some help?!”
We are in the boat, the storms of life are raging around us, and like the disciples, we may believe that Jesus is unconcerned, or “sleeping.” We hope that we will be as familiar with Jesus as his disciples. If we feel that Jesus is sleeping, are we comfortable, are we as familiar with Jesus as the disciples, to rouse him and present him our needs? Jesus did not chide his disciples for waking him. Rather he chided them for their lack of faith. Storms don’t worry Jesus. He’s right there in the boat with us, perfectly calm, not impatient, in no hurry for a solution or relief. He has one ready to hand us but how often do we tell God how to do things and then fret that God is doing nothing because it isn’t happening as we proposed?
Our lived experience should teach us that we need to relax and take heart, remain strong in faith that believes that Jesus isn’t scared of the storm, he isn’t depressed. He might be asleep, or he might not be, but either way, like the song says, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” In the words of the Responsorial psalm: “He hushes the storm to a gentle breeze, and stills the billows of the sea.” Even if Jesus doesn’t wake up at our first call, we are safe with Him. He’s going to wake up and say what you heard in the Gospel to us: “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”
~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB, Prioress
First Reading: Job 38:1,8-11 Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:14-17
Gospel Reading: Mark 4:35-41
Continue ReadingHappy Father’s Day
Amazon Prime Day – Support While You Shop
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