Calamitous Faith

(Mt 9:18-26)

In the communities of Mt the converted Jews were accused by the proponents of the old religion of being perjurers of the customs of the fathers and the great Tradition of Moses. No longer 'children of the precept'.

On the other hand, there was no lack of faithful preachers proclaiming to them that they were not the "sleeping ones" of the Law (v.24), but the only awake ones, living by the Spirit of it (vv.25-26). The true adults.

In the Gospel passage, the icons of such teaching are drawn from what believers in Christ experienced before their eyes. Specifically: how do we contain ourselves when the 'different one' knocks at the door of our homes and assemblies?

According to ancient Eastern beliefs, blood and death were icons of impurity and factors of social exclusion. Expulsion from the community (synagogue of the healthy and pure) was a religious obligation.

And those who were deemed to be afflicted with defects of even physical imperfection could not approach the threshold of assemblies, respectable families or civil life - not even those who had any relationship with them.

But how does God deal with those who have problems? Does He impose duties, procedures, prescribed purification rites? Does he humiliate the very one in need of understanding? And with a whole long rigmarole of disciplines, penances or public verifications?

No, he cures through personal faith. Thus he annihilates the power of death and the obsessive control of the Temple elders - legalists, busy with other tasks and calculations.

With his earth-shattering proposal Jesus cures the deadly disease of the whole people: both the spiritual "daughter" of the leaders [for this, "nation" already perished in the beginning] and those considered unclean.

All still, if you like, "adolescents" of religiosity, that is, unable to live a full life, or never becoming autonomous, although in the process of being so.

[In biblical language, the icons of women recalling the story of the people or a community derive from the fact that in Hebrew the term Israel is feminine].

At the moment of "healing" the "crowd" and the apostles - if ineffective and deviant - must disappear: only Faith (v.22) is valid, that is, the you-for-you with the Lord, who brings God among men and us into the heart of the Father.

That is why it is permissible to omit prescriptions and to surprise him by personal initiative (vv.20-21) - whereas according to the official teachers Jesus should look and go elsewhere (v.22).

To allow oneself to be controlled and kidnapped by false, interested guides means self-condemning oneself not to have a full, full-fledged, face-to-face, authentic and effective, direct relationship - as in love.

Only by unrepeatable Faith - personal and without torment - does one become "sons" (v.22), i.e. pure members of the authentic Church, which unites the creature with the Creator - ceaselessly sparking subsequent renewal and further different Genesis, gradually enhanced.

Thanks to Faith, a relationship of friendship that has Vision, true "adults" overcome the tarnished thoughts, the summary and stagnant gestures of predictable concatenations. They do so in an immediate, uninterrupted, growing way.

Here, our believing becomes unmurdered Way and Rebirth. "Image" within, grasping new possibilities in the world and in the Person of Christ.

Fresh and intense confidence instead of disappointment. Calamity of what is hoped for [cf. Heb 11:1].

To internalise and live the message:

Do you feel judged and marginalised? How do you intertwine your life with God's? How do you rise from the shroud of a world that is habitual and stagnant, addicted, pessimistic and doomed to death? Do you fear that you are a traitor?

Source of the passage from Mt: The episode of Jairus and the Hemorrhox (Mk 5)

Faith is Action, Resourcefulness; Life Force

Faith and Healing, or Exclusion

(Mk 5:21-43)

In Rome, at the time of Mk, the situation of confusion generated by the civil war seemed likely to become lethal for the survival of the persecuted young communities, which some mocked (v.40).

The twelve years of life and bleeding of the two women recall: in Semitic culture, the loss of blood indicated impurity [the beginning of death] and consequent social exclusion.

Blood and death were here and there factors of marginalisation even in the small fraternities, which in that period marked by a still Judaizing thought and customs prevented any participation, even in common appointments.

Under the obsessive diseducation of spiritual leaders, particularly on the sense of sin and unworthiness - in addition, the religious terror of demons - everything seemed to sow panic.

Fears absorbed most of the emotional resources. This made the people's situation worse (v.26).

How to overcome the heap of obstacles, which seemed to have no way out? One had to do the exact opposite of what the religious authorities were inculcating!

Incidentally, the women, completely subjugated, did not in conscience agree with the leaders at all.They even found in the type of male crowd attached to Christ an impediment to personal contact with the Lord....

So they knew they would have to invent something. And they were trying it on the sly.

The 'woman' moves by catching the Master 'from behind' (v.27) - indeed, by stealth! But hers is by no means a sacrilege.

Jesus notices the touch of the least, not just the usual misogynistic throng around.

So, the followers who already imagined they had seized him, fearful of his sensitivity to the least and the non-persons - they treat him as an imbecile and unwise (v.31).

The disciples [leaders and males] always stand by the Son of God, but they do not agree with Him at all. They just want to sequester Him for them.

Dear Rabbi, how dare you have a different reaction from what we tell you? And how does it occur to you to pay attention to those who should only be opposed and condemned - for the indecent initiative they have set themselves? Do you want to ruin us? There's us, that's enough; to others, death and hell; anticipated if possible.

For Jesus, on the other hand, the quality of life and of our expectations in this world is important: it is not enough to think about the afterlife [of the kind: Here sketches, and in the end you will deserve...].

Heaven alone does not count.

Therefore, the transgression of the (considered) defiled - who even follow their conscience [at that time a disgrace] - is grasped by the Lord as an expression of living Faith (v.34)!

"Daughter": Christ welcomes the woman into his Church, and in her he values all those whom the habitués keep at a safe distance.

Nor does He demand that she go to the Temple to offer the sacrifice prescribed by the Law to the priests!

He only says: "Your Faith has saved you. Go in Peace".

That is to say: proceed to the joy of a full life, without the judgement of inadequacy [and the usual deceitful tares] on your back.

Indeed, even the leader of ancient devotion cannot but beget "sons" [i.e., a whole spiritual people] already dead at the start (v.35).

But from the moment he turns to the authentic Master, he begins to make the transition from elementary piety to Faith (v.36).

In such an intimate spousal relationship, without the fear of punishment, the premature end regenerates life, youth, happiness.

The lesson is not only for the traditional synagogue, but also for the leaders of the nascent Church: the proud Peter, James and John (v.37).

Precisely because they are authoritarian, hasty and stubborn - all the other believers in the community are well advised to keep their distance from an environment that cries out in despair, because it still imagines physical death as an impassable fence (v.38).

And here arises a new religious transgression: the book of Leviticus forbade touching a corpse (v.41).

With this incredible gesture, Christ reiterates: whoever observes the law that does not humanise produces death himself and goes to his death.

The only non-negotiable value is the concrete good of the real person. God does not look at merits [supposedly, from invented observances] but needs.

And personal Faith is the divine Gold that realises the inner vision.

Indestructible quality of Relationship: such Action-compassion transcends death that spoils everything.

Precisely, attracting and fulfilling that which the act itself believes (vv.23.28.34.36.39).

"Young girl, I say to you: get up!" (v.41).

St Jerome comments: "Maiden, arise for me: not by your merit, but by my grace. Arise therefore for me: the fact that you were healed did not depend on your virtues' [Homilies on the Gospel of Mark, 3].

In the Gospels the verbs Living, Saving and Dying are ambivalent and describe both health and physical life and spiritual salvation, of the heart (v.34).

The narrative of today's Word helps us overcome the mechanistic view of life: in the Mystery of the founding Eros that animates and renews the life wave, there is the way to beat the problems.

In Christ, our total redemption is a divine response to a trust that is also a little primitive - perhaps incipient - but passionate, that leads to regeneration.

In the Hebrew Bible, the term 'immortality' does not exist.

Israel's slowness in believing in life without end is illuminating: it makes one realise that before believing in the future world, one must value and love existence in this world.

And to have passion for it in the same way as the Father.

Contact with the Son, his words, and the nods themselves, convey a power of healing and rebirth that renews both flesh and spirit; both light and shadow.

Not even death stands as a final and conclusive barrier.

Even today, the divine cure, its memory and consoling power are brought to life in the signs of the Church.

But let us not limit ourselves to being spectators crowding around, without true contact with the Risen One.

Let us open our ears and realise that we are not called to follow in the footsteps of bulky, extraneous presences of others.Let us speak to Him personally, and ask in everything that He intervene in our infirmities, or momentary lapses.

And there arises the silence of a space that is ours, unrepeatable, fragrant, secret; that blossoms from a genuine Syntony.

Then He will transform us, communicate Himself to us (v.43), make us like Him and able to withstand challenges.

Finally able to untie knots of death and help the suspensions of others.

To internalise and live the message:

What is the call of Jesus' actions for you, your family and community?