13th Sunday in Ordinary Time B (30 June 2024)

1. Jesus is the Lord of life and not of death. In the gospel of this 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time we find the account of two miracles embedded in each other in the gospel of Mark, an account also present in the gospel of Matthew and Luke. These are the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus and the healing of the hemorrhaging, a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years: 12 were the years of the child, as 12 were the years of the woman's illness, for both of which all medical possibilities had been tried in vain. The evangelist insists on the failure of the doctors to highlight the power to heal that is Jesus' own, capable even of raising the dead. The whole of Mark's gospel helps us to know who Jesus is and, if he can dominate the violence of storms as we saw last Sunday, through these two prodigies he assures us that he can do everything as he is the Lord of life. The resuscitation of the daughter of Jairus makes us think of our resurrection as well as of the definitive triumph of the kingdom of God that will come on the day when he will say to all mankind, as to the dead maiden: "Talitha koum, get up". And everything becomes possible to those who believe. Salvation, expressed in these miracles, embraces the whole of human reality and demands as its only condition that there be a freely proclaimed faith, a faith that is possible for everyone: both for those who, like Jairus, leader of the synagogue, are notable and powerful and for those who are poor, like the woman condemned to suffer and moreover considered impure because of her illness. Another important message is that, through the account of these miracles, St Mark tells us that Jesus came to combat all kinds of physical and spiritual marginalisation. And he asks us to trust him without doubting like those who mocked him because he said that the child was not dead but asleep.  God's work is mysterious and powerful, and everything becomes possible to those who freely abandon themselves into his hands in every situation, even dramatic ones. By calling as witnesses the disciples closest to him, Peter, James and John, who will also be at his side on Mount Tabor on the occasion of the Transfiguration and in the Garden of Gethsemane at the hour of passion, Jesus intends to educate them to a firm faith that does not rest on the search for miracles and spectacular signs, but seeks to grasp in every event of existence the divine intervention in human frailty.

2. For God never abandons us because he loves us and created man for incorruptibility, as we read in the first reading. It is a passage from the beginning of the book of Wisdom that brings to mind the first chapters of the book of Genesis: both begin with a long reflection on the destiny of the human being. Written in different eras and with different styles, however, they address the same issues, those of life and death. Being in contact with pagan peoples, Israel, jealous guardian of its own religious experience, intends to safeguard the purity of its faith whose first characteristic is precisely the optimism that rests on the certainty of divine love. The statement that we read here: "God created all things that they might exist, the creatures of the world are poprtators of salvation" can be considered a variant of what we read in Genesis: "God saw all that he had made: it was very good (Genesis 1:31).  And again, reading that "God created man...made him in the image of his own nature" we cannot help but think of the book of Genesis: "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). He wanted to create us in his image for eternal life, that is, to live eternally with him. But how to justify death? Is it a failure of God? Absolutely not! And it is on this subject that the Word of God today invites us to reflect. We must first of all distinguish between biological death, which in the biblical and Christian vision is like the transformation of the chrysalis into a butterfly, that is, the passage from this earthly life to eternity; quite another thing is spiritual death, which consists of living separated from God and even rejecting him. And it is precisely this death that is dealt with here by highlighting the fact that in creating man God willed him for eternity, while leaving him free to choose to depart from him. This death, the author notes, entered the world through the devil's envy and 'those who belong to it experience it'. By allowing himself to be drawn by Satan, man experiences spiritual death, the terrible destiny of the wicked, notes the book of Wisdom where, in the first five chapters, the opposition is presented between the righteous who live from the life of God already on earth and the wicked who, on the contrary, choose death, in other words, decide to reject God and condemn themselves to separation from him. Righteous is he who lives by the spirit of God, ungodly is he who does not allow himself to be led by him. In the second book of Genesis we read that in creating man, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of his life and from that moment the human being became 'living'. We are therefore born to live animated by the breath of God, but if we turn away, if we reject God, we enter the realm of life that dies. The difference between the righteous and the wicked is also present in the first psalm often quoted in the liturgy: 'Blessed is the man who does not enter into the counsel of the wicked...but in the law of the Lord he finds his joy'. Here are people who enjoy peace and prosperity, like trees planted along streams of water, vigorous and rich in leaves and then in fruit. Not so the wicked, who are like chaff scattered by the wind: an incisive image of the volatility of life without God. In short, our existence has within itself the seed of eternity and only those who reject it experience spiritual death that can become final.

3. The issue then is twofold: how to avoid spiritual death and how to behave in the face of the fate of biological death that is common to all living beings, since it is true that everything that is born is doomed to die.  Today's word of God emphasises two fundamental possible attitudes: that of the pagans, that is, those who profess not to want to believe, and adopt a style of behaviour summed up in the expression 'carpe diem'. The meaning of this famous Latin saying is manifold, but it is often interpreted as an invitation to live taking advantage of every earthly opportunity to enjoy because human existence is short: let us then live as we can and as we like best because everything comes to an end with our death and after death nothing awaits us. Faced with the mystery of death, the attitude of believers defined by the word of God as 'righteous' is different. They know they must pass through biological death but they were created for immortality. Perhaps not everything on earth goes as one would wish, and sometimes injustice prevails: those who seem to enjoy life by doing evil appear fulfilled in the eyes of men, while those who seek to remain in God's faithfulness go through many trials and may come across many sufferings to the point of suffering injustice and wickedness. Those who trust in God know, however, that not everything ends with biological death, and even if on earth one does not receive recompense for the good one has done, one must never forget that God is infinitely just and will restore justice in due time. The virtue of hope sustains our earthly pilgrimage and illuminates the mystery of death. We must all die, and death is an obligatory stage of our journey towards eternity, even if today efforts are made to conceal it out of fear, and it is not spoken of so as not to offend the sensibilities of people who consider it an inevitable misfortune. What is to be feared instead - and this is the message of God's word in this Sunday liturgy - is spiritual death, the eternal deprivation of God. But how many today stop to reflect on this reality? How many spend their days on earth as if they will never die? How many while living are already spiritually dead? The word of God helps us to recognise and love the Lord of life and death, it invites us to fearlessly place ourselves in his arms as a merciful and faithful Father. And if sometimes, before human frailties and sins we are tempted to become discouraged, let us listen to what St John writes: "Whatever it (the heart) reproaches us for, God is greater than our heart and knows all things" (1Jn 3:20).

+ Giovanni D'Ercole