Our readings this evening point us, again, to what Jesus asks Cleopas and the other disappointed disciple on the road to Emmaus: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”1
In our Gospel reading, the inspired author of Matthew intertwines two very dramatic instances: the death of the official’s daughter and the woman suffering from hemorrhages. Understandably, we tend to skip to the end of these stories, to where the hemorrhages are healed, and the little girl is brought back to life. But we do this to our own detriment. What is notable, what is useful for us in our faith life, is that Jesus healed the afflicted woman after she suffered for twelve years, and he brought the official’s daughter back to life but did not prevent her from dying.
In both cases, rising occurred only after death. In one case quite literally and in the other a bit more figuratively. The question for us, as it was for the official and for the afflicted woman, as indicated by our responsorial, is do you trust God, not even when, but especially when things seem to be going badly, when things seem horribly wrong, when you’re desperate?
It almost goes without saying that it is easy to “trust” God when everything is hunky-dory. Let’s face it, trust only really becomes relevant when things take a turn for the worse. Now, this is not to say that God is going rain down suffering upon you to see whether you trust him. He is not. Life in a fallen world, a world in which pain, suffering, and death are realities, takes care of this and then some.
God certainly allows illness, suffering, and even death- at least for now. When Jesus heals, when he raises people from the dead, he reveals the future. When used in Masses for the Dead, Eucharistic Prayer III tells us about this wonderful future God has in store for us, a future secured by the death and resurrection of his only begotten Son:
Grant that he(she) who was united with your Son in a death like his, may also be one with him in his Resurrection, when from the earth he will raise up in the flesh those who have died, and transform our lowly body after the pattern of his own glorious body. To our departed brothers and sisters, too, and to all who were pleasing to you at their passing from this life, give kind admittance to your kingdom. There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes. For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end2One of the ways we shall be like God is that we will no longer experience pain, suffering, and death. But as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Lord, life’s difficulties persist. Choosing to believe in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, we, too, may have to endure ridicule. People laughed when Jesus said that the girl was not dead but only sleeping. This Good News can seem to many, maybe particularly those who are grieving, mourning, or suffering, too good to be true.
Part of the life of faith is to experience through the events that constitute your life this pattern of dying and rising. The Paschal Mystery is the heart of reality. Experience is how such a belief goes from a theological thesis to reality. To be clear again, God does not cause you to suffer. God does not will or decree that you suffer. But God does allow you to suffer. I realize this can be cold comfort to someone who is suffering.
Some years ago, after a very difficult time in her life, a friend attempted suicide. Spending time with her after her nearly successful attempt, while she is not Catholic but knowing that I am and that I am a deacon, she asked that inevitable and most human of questions about her predicament: Why? I told her that I couldn’t really answer that question. I did tell her I am confident that God uses everything that happens to us to draw us to himself. She replied, “I don’t really care for his methods.” You know what? It’s okay to feel that way at times. In many situations, you would be less than human if you didn’t.
One spiritual practice in too little use today is the practice of uttering short, very short, prayers throughout the day. I can think of no better short prayer to say often than the one given us by the mystic Saint Faustina Kowalska: “Jesus, I trust in You.” I think it’s an especially good prayer to utter when your day goes sideways in an unexpected way or when you find it otherwise impossible to pray.
It's not for nothing that in the Salve Regina, which we recite toward the end of each Rosary, we, Eve’s “Poor banished children,” send the Blessed Mother “our sighs, mourning and weeping” as we make our way through “this valley of tears.”
Above all, keep in mind the key that unlocks not just the meaning of the scriptures we’ve heard today, but the one that unlocks all scriptures, which is expressed well in our Gospel acclamation for this Mass:
Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death
and brought life to light through the Gospel3
1 Luke 24:26.↩
2 Roman Missal. The Order of Mass. Eucharistic Prayer III.↩
3 2 Timothy 1:10.↩
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