Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Last weekend I had the opportunity to spend an extended period of time with my niece’s two year old daughter, Brynn. It was so much fun for me as I do not get the opportunity to be around toddlers very often. They are certainly a busy lot! I noticed how determined she was to do everything by herself. She would try and open a juice box or do something else all by herself and when she found she couldn’t do it she would get frustrated and impatient. Eventually her mom or dad would say, “Say ‘help please’”. So she would blurt out ‘help, please!” And then everything would work out fine. I was so struck by how I can identify with this 2 year old! I do not like asking for help. I like to think I can do everything by myself and I don’t like asking for help from anyone. But what my niece and her husband were teaching this precious baby was that it is okay to ask for help from other people. And not only that, but when we feel helpless and are humble enough to ask for help, things get accomplished that would never happen when we insist on doing it alone.
The Gospel passage from Matthew relates Jesus’ healing of two people. The first is an official seeking the healing of his daughter and the second a woman suffering from years of bleeding. The official directly approaches Jesus asking him to come and save his dying child and the hemorrhaging woman reaches out to touch the tassel of his clothing. Both of these healings come about because of their deep faith and both as a result of realizing they cannot bring about healing by their own power. They realize they are helpless. It is being at this very place—being helpless—that healing can take place. It is here that their relationship, devotion, and faith in Jesus comes alive. Feeling helpless and unable to accomplish something by ourselves can be one of the greatest blessings we ever experience. This is often the very ‘place’ that we can meet Jesus. And this is where Jesus will be to meet us when we are ready. Feeling helpless can be the beginning of realizing who we are, the beginning of knowing who God is, and the beginning of a much deeper relationship with the One who made us.
Regardless of who we are, where we come from, or what we have accomplished in our lives we cannot live in complete self-sufficiency. Even though it may seem almost intuitive to try and do this, we cannot really pull it off. We make resolutions, we make plans for how we will change, and we promise ourselves tomorrow will be different; but it rarely works out the way we plan. How often do we do this to ourselves? How often are we disappointed? We are not programmed or created to live by and for ourselves alone. We are born in and of community meant to live our lives interdependently. And we are meant to live as children dependent on our God. We were made to live in the creative love of community just as the Holy Trinity lives in community—to live by, with, and for one another.
Today is an opportunity to realize how much more fruitful, joyful, and grace filled our lives can be when we live humble enough to ask for help from our community and willing enough to offer help to those in our community. I ask myself who I will encounter this day that will be a gift from God—a vessel of healing and mercy and love? Will I be willing to set aside my prideful self-sufficiency and accept who God places before me? As well, who will cross my path that is in need of the healing of Jesus? Will I respond to the opportunity to offer my help and love to them? I pray He will grant me these graces this day.
--Gail Lyman