Today in the Gospel, Jesus raises a dead girl and heals a sick woman. The dead girl was the daughter of a synagogue official named Jairus while the woman has been hemorrhaging for 12 years.
Children and women during the time of Jesus were non-entities. They were second-class citizens with no legal personalities and rights of their own. Children need to have a father to claim them, and women have to have husbands to give them legal personality in society. Women and children then belong to the category of those who were at the bottom and margin of society.
Marginalized
The Gospel is a proclamation of how Jesus lifts up those who are at the bottom and margin of society, on how Jesus brings back to the center those who are at the peripheries of society. We have gone a long way since the time of Jesus. Children and women today are in a much better situation than before. Or are they really?
I remember a news story that took place at the Cincinnati Zoo in which a young boy fell into the cage where a 300-pound gorilla was kept. While there were periods of calm and seeming harmless interaction between the boy and the gorilla, the latter in two instances took the hand of the boy and violently swept him from side to side. This prompted the zoo owners to shoot the gorilla which died afterwards. Good thing the boy was safe, you might say. No. There was public outrage over the death of the gorilla; no one gave attention that the boy was safe. Many commented in that news article that there seemed to be more sympathy for the dead gorilla than the safe boy, someone responded and said, “The gorilla is an endangered animal, the boy was not.” When the safety of a human child is less valued than an animal, we have not really raised up children from the bottom and margin of society.
Lord, You raised me up. Help me do the same for others. Amen.
REFLECTION QUESTION:
Like the little girl in the Gospel, Jesus commands you, “Arise!” What hinders you from rising from sin, sickness, and despair? What ways and attitudes do you have that continue to prevent raising up others?
Thank you Padre for your good works and words. May God bless you and keep you strong in the faith. I especially liked the prayer. “Lord, You raised me up. Help me do the same for others. Amen.