The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
Approaching the family room in the back corner of the emergency department, a relatively quiet location secluded from the noise of a busy inner-city hospital, I pause before opening the door. Tragically, a young child had died, and despite our best efforts modern medicine could not resuscitate her. Hearing the faint whispers of tearful prayers behind that enclosed space, my heart weighs heavily for their loss. Grief soon fills the room as their hopes for a positive outcome shatter, and for some, faith in a benevolent God questioned. How do I let them know that it wasn’t their fault? That life henceforth can and does have meaning
Fortunately, today’s reading in the book of Wisdom bears witness to and brings hope within the painful reality of the human condition. It was not God who created death, but rather the envy of Satan, who loathes the incomprehensible love bestowed to us as wholesome creatures of God’s own Image. We, despite the oftentimes difficult circumstances of our earthly life, may indeed find consolation that our heavenly Father does not relish in human suffering, nor, as elucidated in today’s Gospel of Mark, does He remain a passive bystander to it. To the contrary, Jesus walked through crowds and entered a grief-filled room to demonstrate with two words - “Talitha koum” – that God has the ultimate power over death.
Moreover, this week, we are privy to not one, but two miraculous events of healing. As a physician myself, I find this interaction between Christ and the woman afflicted with hemorrhaging particularly moving. Let us first imagine the plight of this poor woman. In ancient Jewish society, the prescriptions of cleanliness were particularly strict, and not only was she physically weak from her twelve years of bleeding, but also financially bankrupt due to incorrect diagnoses by the physicians treating her, and worst of all, socially isolated by her ‘unclean’ condition. Her successful attempt to but touch the cloak of Jesus was nothing short of a desperate plea for help. To the perceived absurdity of the crowd surrounding Him, Jesus demands knowledge of who “touched my clothes”. The interaction that ensues is not one of an impersonal omnipotent being. No! Rather, this beautiful encounter exposes Christ’s indelible love for us - “Daughter, your faith has saved you”. Clearly our Lord was and is profoundly moved by His daughter’s faith, and by proxy, our own. Our very existence, not the least our suffering, is intimately intertwined with God’s immaculate love for us.
In these turbulent waters of life, may Faith in our loving God prove sufficient to heal our deepest sorrows.
Phillip Hoverstadt is an Emergency Medicine Physician who practices in Houston, Texas. He particularly enjoys spending quality time with friends and family, hiking, biking, and everything in-between.