13th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Wisdom 1 13 – 15; 2:23 – 24; Ps 30; 2 Cor 8: 7, 9, 13 – 15; Mark 5: 21 – 43
Psalm 37: 3 – “If you trust in the Lord and do good, then you will live in the land and be secure.” Literally it is: “trust in the Lord and do good” – not an option rather a command from God Himself and the Lord would never command us unless we had the ability to do something – in this case to trust in Him.
The potential to trust, like belief, love is present within us from conception, but needs to be nurtured, brought to growth. Our parents and others by their trust, belief, etc. teach us, lead us so that we know what these very important human qualities are about. The problem, of course, is that sometimes these people give questionable, even poor example and life itself challenges our living them.
So often one hears a person confess, “I have a problem trusting” or “I don’t trust enough.” Of course, given our human nature, fragile and imperfect, who has perfect trust; who does not bear some fear, some anxiety? Some, to a great degree and some, to a lesser degree, with all sorts of degrees between.
In today’s Gospel St. Mark presents us with two people who approach Jesus with trust – the synagogue official, Jairus and the unnamed woman with the 12 year affliction of hemorrhages.
I believe Jairus presents us with an extraordinary amount of trust – the situation with his daughter near death causes Jesus to go with him. When the word arrives that she has died, without hesitation Jesus says to him, “Do not be afraid, just have faith!” And whatever terrible grief he felt, he followed Jesus and saw his daughter healed. Jairus presents the ideal of trust something we need to seek from the Lord.
The woman seeks out Jesus just to touch his cloak with trust but also with fear. “Who touched me” – he said repeatedly and with “fear and trembling” she came forth – face to face with Jesus. Her trust touched by fear, was not an obstacle to Jesus – I believe the Lord tells us that trust need not be perfect, extraordinary like Jairus. The Lord welcomes us even with our fears. The woman presents a diminished trust – a common reality among us. Surely, then, our prayer needs to be, “I trust Lord, help my lack of trust!”
Shortly, we will have the opportunity to receive the Lord in Holy Communion – what a great act of trust, of belief this is. We trust because Jesus said, “This is My Body….This is My blood.” Without seeing the Lord, we trust because He us completely trustworthy. And the Lord in giving Himself to us in the Holy Eucharist entrusts Himself to you, to me – He trusts that we will live what we receive, we will follow more closely the One who comes. Faced with such incomprehensible divine trust, how can we not desire to trust Him more and more.
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