13th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Wisdom 1:13–15; 2:23–24

Ps. 30:2, 4, 5–6, 11, 12, 13

2 Corinthians 8:7, 9, 13–15

Mark 5:21–43


“God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him.”

Human beings have a destiny that is beyond this world. Death is real. But, as our faith tells us, even more real than death is life. We live in this world in a partial way, but we will live beyond the limits of this world. Faith answers the question that every human culture has wrestled with. It gives an answer, but it does not offer a full explanation.

The kind of faith that accomplishes what it promises is an active, involved, participatory faith. We learn the power of faith and we learn to ask for what it offers. The Gospel presents us with two situations of persons seeking healing from illness. Jairus asks the Lord for the healing of his daughter and Jesus accompanies him to his home. The woman afflicted with hemorrhages reaches out to touch the clothing of the Lord while He is on the way, and her need is instantly met.

There is a tendency in our time to reduce faith to a mere acceptance of a list of ideas. In fact, it is a trusting relationship with a God who keeps His promises. There is a temptation often at work even among people who have faith to reduce it to a request for something that is for us alone. We pray and ask God for what we want. If we do not get the answer we desire, we fall prey to the notion that God does not hear our prayer. Two people of faith in the Gospel today offer us another approach.

Jairus asks for the healing of his daughter. This is a request for someone other than himself. In those days, women and children had no public standing. Jairus himself had standing as a synagogue official, but he was requesting healing for his daughter. Jairus saw Jesus. “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.’”

Jairus forgot himself. He gave himself fully to the plea, body and soul. He was even forgetful of the “danger” for Jesus of touching death, which would make Him ritually impure, unfit for worship, according to the understanding of the law. As a synagogue official, this “should have been” unthinkable. Along the way, the news of the child’s death is given: “Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?” Jesus responds by encouraging Jairus to maintain his active faith.

The woman with the hemorrhages had an active faith, expressed without words but seen clearly in her desire to touch Jesus’ garment and her acting on that desire in the pressing crowd. Her willingness to identify herself and to tell Jesus exactly what she had done show the sincerity of her faith. Jesus completes the circle of relationship with her: “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”  

The flow of blood had stopped. The usual Jewish perspective was that the woman’s touch would have made Jesus unclean. Instead, she experiences healing, and Jesus continues his journey to Jairus’ home. The “mourners” at the door, persons who are no doubt hoping to be paid for their “public services,” are not sincere in their wailing, as is made clear by the way they change to ridicule of the notion that the girl has not died. Their reaction is a counterexample to the witness of faith shown by Jairus. The disciples see the whole series of events and are called to be witnesses of the proper response of faith.

We are invited to be firm in faith, even facing all the deadly evils of the world. God has a plan that is just beyond our sight. The promise of healing and new life remains. One day, we will all cry out together: “You changed my mourning into dancing; O Lord, my God, forever will I give you thanks.”