Faith, hope and love . . .
Faith is the capacity to transcend all the changes of history and to project an ultimate source and end of temporal and historical reality. Hope is the capacity to transcend all the confusions of history and project an ultimate end of all historical existence, that which does not annul history but fulfills it. Love is the capacity to recognize the social substance of human existence, and to realize that the
unique self is intimately related to all human creatures. These capacities relate the self to the eternal world and are its keys to that world.
- Reinhold Niebuhr, "A View of Life from the Sidelines"
("Pro-level" definitions by a first-rate theologian and spiritual writer. How do they speak to you?)
|
2 Sm 18:9-10, 14b, 24-25a, 30–19:3; Psalm 86:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
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 on the Scriptures
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you and I could turn to Jesus this readily, in our needs? Maybe this gospel can remind us to keep our eyes fixed on him each day, even in the midst of our busy ways of avoiding our need for him. There are so many of us, around the world, with so many needs that his touch can really heal. At the very least, he can heal our doubts and fears, our dependencies on other stuff, our angers,
our hurts, our judgments, our pride. Maybe, in this renewal of faith, we can just turn his direction and reach out for him. Maybe a loved one has gone to get him, in some way, to bring him to us, and it doesn't matter what obstacles lie in the way. Jesus wants to be with us.
And, for the many of us who have asked for healing and have not received what we have asked for, our faith invites us to place our trust in the power that will flow out of him to us, as we keep our trust in him.
- by Andy Alexander, S. J.
The Existence of God
by Francois Fenelon
SECTION II. Moral Proofs of the Existence of God are fitted to every person's
capacity.
But there is a less perfect way, level to the meanest capacity. People the least exercised in reasoning, and the most tenacious of the prejudices of the senses, may yet with one look discover Him who has drawn Himself in all His works. The wisdom and power He has stamped upon everything He has made are seen, as it were, in a glass by those that cannot contemplate Him in His own idea.
This is a sensible and popular philosophy, of which anyone free from passion and prejudice is capable. "The human soul is still rational, but in such a manner that, being by the punishment of sin detained in the bonds of death, it is so far reduced that it can only endeavour to arrive at the knowledge of things invisible through the visible."
|
|
