Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
It is sometimes said that human beings take a leap of faith in order to believe in God or to practice their religion. Faith does not always have a great reputation. It is sometimes considered irrational since the things of faith cannot be seen. In addition, it is sometimes awkward to talk of faith to others in a public setting, because we realize that many others do not share our faith. Despite the questions that can be raised about faith, nevertheless the gospel reading for today speaks of the importance of faith, even for our lives today.
The gospel reading tells the story of two healings from Jesus’ public ministry. In the first, a woman touches the hem of Jesus’ garment when he passes by her in a crowd. After he realizes what has happened, Jesus tells the woman that her faith has healed her (v. 34). Jesus is not only praising the women for her trust in his power to heal her, he is stating the it is the women’s faith that actually leads to her healing by motivating her to reach out to Jesus for help. In the second, related event, Jesus is approached by a synagogue official whose daughter has fallen ill. Before Jesus can reach the man’s house, the man receives word that his daughter has died. Naturally, the official is very upset. Jesus responds by disregarding the news of the girl’s death, and he tells the man to “just have faith” (v. 36), to trust Jesus that he has the situation under control. Jesus proceeds to enter the man’s house and to heal the man’s daughter.
In relating both of these events, today’s gospel seems to teach that faith is the basis for God’s work of healing in our lives. Both the woman and the synagogue official trust that Jesus can heal them, and Jesus makes a point of connecting their faith to the miracles he performs. If this is going on in the Biblical account, then it is also true for us today. Like the people Jesus interacts with in the gospel passage, we too need faith. We need to trust that Jesus can help us. As Christians, we do not put our faith in an abstract principle or an impersonal force, but instead in the living God, who is revealed in the Bible and in a very concrete way in the divine person of Jesus Christ.
The opposite of faith is despair. In despair a person gives up on and fails to trust in God. To despair is to view ourselves as being alone and without divine help; it leads us not to take risks in our Christian life, because we are afraid that God will not be there to help us if something unexpected happens. As the gospel today reminds us, Jesus wants to help us, and he is willing to do so. But we also need to have faith in him—not in order to receive his help, since he has already reached out to us—but so that we can get to know him better and learn to better recognize his presence in our lives. In response, let us pray for faith to rely on God for the courage to do the things that God wants us to do today.
- Joel Schickel