Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Hosea 2:16.17c-18.21-22;
Matthew 9:18-26)
Today’s gospel should seem like déjà vu. It is an abbreviated parallel to the passage
read a week ago Sunday from the Gospel of Mark.
It pictures Jesus as somewhat more than the “man of God” as people
thought of him in his day.
Jesus shows himself to be a servant of God when he wastes
not a minute in going to help the official’s daughter. The woman with hemorrhages certainly
considers Jesus a holy person when she thinks that by touching his cloak, she could be
cured. In fact she touches it and is
healed. Jesus then reveals just how like
God he is. When he enters the official’s
house, his daughter appears to be dead.
Yet when he takes her hand, she comes to life.
But Jesus is more than a "man
of God." When he rises from the dead, he
shows himself to be equal to God -- the true Son of the Father. We look to him to raise us like the official’s
daughter from the stupor in which often find ourselves. We tend to go along with the masses believing
that happiness consists of being rich or being powerful or being sated with
pleasure. When Jesus takes our hand and awakens
us, he shows us something different. We see
that true happiness consists in being generous, humble, and befriended by Jesus himself. Of course, he will do more for us than
that. Because he is God, he will also raise
us from the sleep of actual death when the time comes.
