GOD HAS THE POWER TO HEAL AND RESTORE.

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June 30, 2024.
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – B.

Readings: Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24; Ps 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11, 12, 13;2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15; Mk 5:21-43.

“Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” Mk 5:41

A British proverb says: “The first step to health is to know that we are sick.” An Albanian proverb adds: “Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.”

We spoke last Sunday of God's power, that he has power over everything, including the sea and the evil forces. This could sound abstract for some people and even ideal. Today's liturgy, particularly the Gospel attests to God's power, and it is at work in Jesus. All that it requires is faith. To see and feel God's powerful hand at work in one's life, one must have a firm faith in him. Without faith, no miracle is possible.

We are exhorted to trust that God is at work in us and that he alone has the power to keep us alive when people give us for dead. "Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved. However, according to the Lord's words "Thus you will know them by their fruits" - reflection on God's blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty. A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: "Asked if she knew that she was in God's grace, she replied: 'If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.'" CCC 2005.

One could be tempted to ask what then is faith and how does it open us to God's grace? Our answer will be Heb 11:1: "Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." Faith is the capacity to hope even when nothing proves that what one hopes for will come.

The word of God today sets us in front of realities that ask for firmness of faith. In the first reading, we are given a beautiful theological and sapiential answer on the origin of sin and death. The extract from the Book of Wisdom tells us that death is not from God. God created us for life and he always stands by the side of life. As says the Prophet Ezekiel, he takes no pleasure in our death. (Ez 33:11). There was no evil in all that he created. Gn 1:31 could attest: "God saw all he had made, and indeed it was very good." Evil and death came as we read, "by the envy of the devil, ... and they who belong to his company experience it."

While God created man for life, death came to corrupt that life. Jesus will, therefore, bring about restoration. The Lord restores the suffering woman and resurrects the dead girl. With these two miracles, Jesus tells us of God's plan for us. He wants us alive. All that diminishes or deteriorates life is not in his plan.

Because God created us Good and for life, he urges us also to be instruments of life. As Christians, because of our faith in Jesus who restores us to life, we should also in all the possible ways, become instruments and givers of life. That is St. Paul's message in the second reading.

St. Paul, in addressing the Corinthians, invites each one of us to become instruments of God's goodness. That our abundance should supply the needs of the poor, the Apostle says because of our faith; we should excel in gracious acts. Faith must go together with genuine love that leads to sacrifice just like Jesus did. He emptied himself to fill our emptiness of his fullness. True faith is a journey of kenosis, a journey of self-emptying acts. God created us good. The world and its allurement filled us with emptiness and void created by material attraction. It is only through kenosis and charity that we will rediscover and be restored to our original beauty and goodness. And that is why Jesus came, with the power to heal, raise to life, and save.

It is time for us to wake up from all material attachment, evil links, and idleness, open ourselves to God, and be restored to our original goodness. To us too, just as he addressed the little girl, the Lord says: “Talitha koum.” It is a call to wake up from evil, detach ourselves from sin, and excel in graciousness and goodness.

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