“Death is a part of life,” or so we’re told. This is true insofar as all of us will die. As Jesus, drawing attention back to the beginning in Genesis, pointed out to those who asked him about divorce and who noted that Moses permitted it, from the beginning it was not so.1 As our reading from Wisdom tells us: “God formed man to be imperishable.”2
As the inspired author of the Book of Wisdom notes: God created human beings “of his own nature.”3 This amounts to the same thing we learn about in the first creation account in Genesis: man and woman were made in God’s image and likeness.4 While God’s image, the imago Dei, cannot be lost, our likeness to God is lost through sin.
While we are not born merely to die, because death entered the world, it is not enough to be born in order not to die. You must be reborn by water and the Spirit. The primary effect of the sacrament of baptism is to restore the baptized to a state of original grace. Through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, our likeness to God can be restored by grace.
This same grace is operative in the sacrament of penance, which is an extension of baptism. While it may seem old-fashioned to say so, you should strive to live in a state of grace. What does it mean to endeavor to live in a state of grace? It doesn’t mean being perfect, even though we should strive for and deeply desire perfection, which, in a Christian context, can also be called holiness.
The fruit of the fourth Luminous Mystery of the Blessed Virgin’s Most Holy Rosary, which mystery is Jesus’ Transfiguration, is a desire for holiness, a desire for transfiguration, transformation, conversion, the desire for sanctity. What it means to be holy is to be like Jesus Christ. What it means to be like Christ is to love perfectly, to love God with your entire being, and to love your neighbor as yourself. All of the various ways we have to access grace, even the sacraments, are means to this end.
Today’s Gospel powerfully shows us how Jesus rescues and restores us. While there is no reason to doubt the historicity of these encounters with Jesus, these were not remembered and written down to be handed merely as biography.
What I am getting at is illustrated by last Sunday’s Gospel. If you remember, it began with Jesus climbing into the boat with his disciples and saying, “Let us cross to the other side.”5 Perhaps the best way to grasp this episode is as an allegory.
Uou and I, all of us hearing God’s word together, are the disciples to whom Jesus speaks. The boat is the Church. The sea, which in the ancient world, including for the Jewish people, was a place of chaos, a place where dangers lurked, where storms often proved deadly, is what we experience as we make our way through life to what the old hymn calls “God’s celestial shore.”6 Jesus is the master of wind, the sea, the sky, of all there is. Therefore, because we are in the boat with him, we need not fear even while the storm rages.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ bringing Jairus’ daughter back to life is interrupted by the woman who sought healing from something that afflicted her for twelve years. Let’s translate this into something more relatable for most of us. In terms of sin, how long have you struggled with the same damned thing? How often does it seem like your confession is just the same thing over and over? It’s easy to get discouraged.
You need to remember three things. First, Jesus has already won the victory. Second, you’re never beaten until you quit. Third, you will get tired of asking for God’s mercy before God tires being merciful to you, which requires nothing other than your acknowledgment of and sorrow for your sins. Divine Mercy is infinite.
What God limits is evil, even though this is sometimes far from evident. Pope Saint John Paul II insisted that the cross of Christ “marks the divine limit placed upon evil.” Through the cross, he continued, “evil is radically overcome by good, hate by love, death by resurrection.”7
The fruit of the third Luminous Mystery is repentance and trust in God. Maybe this is going off on a tangent but pray the Rosary. If possible, pray the Rosary every day. In a letter he wrote to an archbishop, Pope Pius XII noted that the Rosary is “the compendium of the entire Gospel.”8
To trust God is to trust Jesus, who, as Son of the Father, is also God. Each Christian amid life’s storms must not ask, “Jesus, why don’t you care that I am perishing?” Instead. We must learn to say, even if only in a quivering voice, “Jesus, I trust in You.” Thomas à Kempis in his timeless spiritual classic The Imitation of Christ, writes about Jesus saying,
Come to Me when it is not well with thee.These are lovely words. But like those featured in today’s Gospel as well as last week’s, we must get beyond the sentimentality of these words and verify this truth through experience. Is Jesus trustworthy, or isn’t he? Everything hinges on the answer to this question! Proof in favor of the Lord’s trustworthiness is not whether he does your bidding according to your timing and in just the way you ask him to. Rather, it lies in abandoning yourself, like he did, to the loving care of the Father, who is committed only to your good.
This is that which most of all hinders heavenly comfort, that thou art slow in turning thyself to prayer9
Don Francisco, a contemporary Christian music artist from years past, has an amazing ability to bring Gospel stories alive through his songs. He wrote an amazing song called “A Little Closer to Jesus,” the first verse of which, along with the chorus, strikes me as very illuminating today:
Well, a woman with a burden of sickness twelve yearsFor those who like to be given something to do in a homily: this week, get a little closer to Jesus by praying the Rosary each day. To Jesus through Mary is the fruit of the Rosary’s second Luminous Mystery- the miracle at the wedding feast of Cana. Given that this happens during a feast, one can taste a Eucharistic undertone, pointing us to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. As Catholics, we must always be aware that it is impossible to get closer to Jesus than through the Eucharist.
Heard that Jesus was coming her way;
She didn't stop to worry 'bout her doubts and her fears
She had to fight for every step of the way
Through the crowds that were pressing around Him
Through the heat and the dust of the road,
And when she touched his cloak, God healed her body
He lifted her heavy load
If I can get a little closer to Jesus
Just a little bit closer to Jesus…
Everything's gonna be all right10
1 See Mark 10:3-7.↩
2 Wisdom 2:23.↩
3 Wisdom 2:23.↩
4 Genesis 1:26.↩
5 Mark 4:25.↩
6 "I'll Fly Away."↩
7 Pope John Paul II. Memory and Identity: Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium.↩
8 Cited by Pope Paul VI in Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus, sec. 42.↩
9 Thomas à Kempis. The Imitation of Christ, Book III, Chap 30, verse 1.↩
10 Don Francisco, “Closer to Jesus.”↩
No comments:
Post a Comment