THIRTEENTH Sunday in Ordinary Time: "Do not be afraid; just have faith."

Wisdom 1, 13-15; 2, 23-24; Psalm 30; 2 Corinthians 8: 7. 9. 13-15; St. Mark 5: 21-43

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Jesus' raising the dead to life was remarkable, and his healing of the woman afflicted with a hemorrhage was remarkable, but the prophets had also healed the sick, the blind and the lame and the prophets had also raised the dead. These raisings and healings were a return to, or restoration of, mere earthly existence. There is more!

There is something more offered to us in Jesus that sets him completely apart as the Christ. These miraculous events portend the same reality, whether coming through the prophets or Christ: eternal life. Our resurrection will be possible only in and with the divine person of Jesus Christ. We must be in bodily union with him if we wish to be raised as he was from the dead to the glorified state of resurrection.

Jesus links faith in the resurrection to his own person: "I am the Resurrection and the life." It is Jesus himself who on the last day will raise up those who have believed in him, who have eaten his body and drunk his blood. Already now in this present life he gives a sign and pledge of this by restoring some of the dead to life, announcing thereby his own Resurrection, though it was to be of another order. He speaks of this unique event as the "sign of Jonah," the sign of the temple: he announces that he will be put to death but rise thereafter on the third day. CCC 994

I look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together, we "meet Christ in the liturgy", Father Cusick

Meeting Christ in the Liturgy (Publish with permission.)

(Photo by author: Italian priest and pilgrims pray at the Basilica of Saint Paul outside the Walls.)