20180701
OVERCOMING DEATH AND SICKNESS IN OUR LIFE
01 JULY, 2018, Sunday, 13th Week,
Ordinary Time
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Green.
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First reading
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Wisdom 1:13-15,2:23-24 ©
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God takes no pleasure in the extinction of the living
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Death was not God’s doing,
he takes no pleasure in the extinction of the living.
To be – for this he created all;
the world’s created things have health in them,
in them no fatal poison can be found,
and Hades holds no power on earth;
for virtue is undying.
Yet God did make man imperishable,
he made him in the image of his own nature;
it was the devil’s envy that brought death into the world,
as those who are his partners will discover.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 29(30):2,4-6,11-13 ©
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I will praise you, Lord, you have rescued me.
I will praise you, Lord, you have rescued me
and have not let my enemies rejoice over me.
O Lord, you have raised my soul from the dead,
restored me to life from those who sink into the
grave.
I will praise you, Lord, you have rescued me.
Sing psalms to the Lord, you who love him,
give thanks to his holy name.
His anger lasts a moment; his favour all through life.
At night there are tears, but joy comes with dawn.
I will praise you, Lord, you have rescued me.
The Lord listened and had pity.
The Lord came to my help.
For me you have changed my mourning into dancing:
O Lord my God, I will thank you for ever.
I will praise you, Lord, you have rescued me.
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Second reading
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2 Corinthians 8:7,9,13-15 ©
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The Lord Jesus became poor for your sake, to make you rich
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You always have the most of everything – of faith, of
eloquence, of understanding, of keenness for any cause, and the biggest share
of our affection – so we expect you to put the most into this work of
mercy too. Remember how generous the Lord Jesus was: he was rich, but he became
poor for your sake, to make you rich out of his poverty. This does not mean
that to give relief to others you ought to make things difficult for
yourselves: it is a question of balancing what happens to be your surplus now
against their present need, and one day they may have something to spare that
will supply your own need. That is how we strike a balance: as scripture says: The man who gathered much had none
too much, the man who gathered little did not go short.
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Gospel Acclamation
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cf.Jn6:63,68
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life;
you have the message of eternal life.
Alleluia!
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Or:
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cf.2Tim1:10
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Our Saviour Jesus Christ abolished death
and he has proclaimed life through the Good News.
Alleluia!
EITHER:
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Gospel
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Mark 5:21-43 ©
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Little
girl, I tell you to get up
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When Jesus had crossed in the boat to the other side, a large
crowd gathered round him and he stayed by the lakeside. Then one of the
synagogue officials came up, Jairus by name, and seeing him, fell at his feet
and pleaded with him earnestly, saying, ‘My little daughter is desperately
sick. Do come and lay your hands on her to make her better and save her life.’
Jesus went with him and a large crowd followed him; they were pressing all
round him.
Now there
was a woman who had suffered from a haemorrhage for twelve years; after long
and painful treatment under various doctors, she spent all she had without
being any the better for it, in fact, she was getting worse. She had heard
about Jesus, and she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his cloak.
‘If I can touch even his clothes,’ she had told herself ‘I shall be well
again.’ And the source of the bleeding dried up instantly, and she felt in
herself that she was cured of her complaint. Immediately aware that power had
gone out from him, Jesus turned round in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my
clothes?’ His disciples said to him, ‘You see how the crowd is pressing round
you and yet you say, “Who touched me?”’ But he continued to look all round to
see who had done it. Then the woman came forward, frightened and trembling
because she knew what had happened to her, and she fell at his feet and told
him the whole truth. ‘My daughter,’ he said ‘your faith has restored you to
health; go in peace and be free from your complaint.’
While he was
still speaking some people arrived from the house of the synagogue official to
say, ‘Your daughter is dead: why put the Master to any further trouble?’ But
Jesus had overheard this remark of theirs and he said to the official, ‘Do not
be afraid; only have faith.’ And he allowed no one to go with him except Peter
and James and John the brother of James. So they came to the official’s house
and Jesus noticed all the commotion, with people weeping and wailing
unrestrainedly. He went in and said to them, ‘Why all this commotion and
crying? The child is not dead, but asleep.’ But they laughed at him. So he
turned them all out and, taking with him the child’s father and mother and his
own companions, he went into the place where the child lay. And taking the
child by the hand he said to her, ‘Talitha, kum!’ which means, ‘Little girl, I
tell you to get up.’ The little girl got up at once and began to walk about,
for she was twelve years old. At this they were overcome with astonishment, and
he ordered them strictly not to let anyone know about it, and told them to give
her something to eat.
OVERCOMING DEATH AND SICKNESS IN OUR LIFE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ WIS 1:13-15, 2:23-24; 2 COR 8:7, 9, 13-15; MK 5:21-43 ]
No one is
happy about dying, because no one wants to die. Most people try to
fight it. Others attempt to defy it. This is a fact. I am
sure we have come across many cases of terminally ill patients and their
relatives who just could not accept the reality of death. Yes, today our
culture places emphasis on youth, vitality, and health. That is why
many of us are conscious, or should I say obsessed, with our looks, our diet
and weight. Some take supplements; others dye their hair – because we all
want to look young and feel young. But no matter what we do, we know that
life is fragile. It is subjected to illness and must succumb to death,
the inevitable limit.
So, the question
that confronts us in today’s readings is this: Can we still
believe in life in the face of death? The answer is a resounding
“Yes.” From the outset, the first reading makes it clear that in the plan
of God, He did not include death. In fact, the author states that God is
unhappy that humankind must die. Death is not God’s doing. Rather,
He created all things good. God wants us to live. And this is
underscored by the healing and resuscitation miracles in today’s gospel.
How, then, do
we live in such a way that we will never die? And even when death really comes, are we
able to embrace it with open arms, without fear? We can if we really
understand the meaning of death. Unless we know what death is, how can we
know how to live? Isn’t it true that we value good health only when we
have fallen sick? If not we take our health for granted. It is also
similarly true with life. In order to live, we must know what death
is. So what is death? Very often, death is seen as the
cessation of biological life. If that were the case, then we need not
worry about death – because it will be the end of all miseries and pain.
For good reason, we say, ‘call no man happy until he is dead’.
But what
is to be feared is actually not biological death but a living death.
The fact is that physical health alone cannot bring us happiness. Indeed,
why ask for a long life at all if our present life is full of emptiness and
misery? To live a life of misery is to prolong our martyrdom.
Unless you hope to be a martyr for the Church! So death is the loss of
spiritual life, a life that is lived in the spirit – a spirited life – a
dynamic life – life in the fullest sense of the term. The tragedy is that
many of us are contented with this kind of lifeless life – existing and kicking
but really we have died.
But that is
what even us Catholics seem to want. Take the Sacrament of the Sick for example.
People would rather turn to prayer groups and even mediums for help in time of
serious sickness than to avail themselves of the Sacrament. Why? Because
the Sacrament of the Sick does not seem to offer spectacular cures. In
fact, it has always been seen as the Sacrament for the dying. But this is
a wrong understanding of what the Sacrament is all about. In this
Sacrament, the Church is not concerned with merely restoring the physical
health of the person. Indeed, what good is it if the person who has been
living a wicked and sinful life is restored to health, only to continue that
kind of life? No, in the Sacrament of the Sick, the Church attacks
the root cause of all illnesses. It prays for healing not just on the
physical dimension but also on the emotional, psychological and most of all,
the spiritual level.
In the final
analysis, the reason why we are so unhappy in life is because we all have heart
disease.
And what is the cause? It is not high cholesterol but a selfish
heart. The first reading speaks of the death that is brought about by the
envy of the devil. An envy that is the product of selfishness.
Millions die this kind of death. It is selfishness that alienates us from
others. The real suffering of the woman in the gospel was because she was
alienated as she was considered unclean; so too, death was painful for the
little girl and her parents because they have been alienated.
How then do
we cure our selfish hearts? The Gospel tells us that we must have faith – faith in
Jesus who is our Resurrection and Life. In healing the Woman who was bleeding,
and in raising Jairus’ daughter, Jesus shows that He has the power to bestow
life. But this life is ours only when we live the life of Jesus, which is
a life of death. A paradox. But that is the way. Why? Because
the real antidote to death is death itself. In Chinese medicine, it is said
that the best way to overcome poison is to destroy it with a stronger
poison. Similarly, to overcome death we must fight death with death, but
a higher form of death.
And what is this
death? It is the death to ourselves. A person cannot
live when he lives only for himself. The paradox of life is that life
is ours only when it is given away. It is in sharing our life with others
that we truly live. The richest people are those who know how to share
and the poorest are those who think only of themselves. Yes, the rich, in
the sense of this world, can have real riches only when the poor gives them the
joy of giving and sharing. This is the way Jesus lived. For this
reason, St Paul in the second reading urges us to follow the example of
Jesus. Christ became poor for our sake so that we might become
rich. Christ was as rich as God, but became poor in the incarnation
and redemption.
But where can
we find the strength to die to ourselves? That strength can only come from our own
experience of the love of God in our lives. The good things that happen
to us and the blessings that we receive are signs of God’s fidelity to
us. The healing miracles in the Gospel and in our lives are meant to be
just that: to remind us that God loves us. That is why it would be naive
to think that so long as we have faith and pray, God will always heal us.
Nay, we cannot be healed and live forever. Even Jairus’ daughter would
have to die one day. But that is not the point. The point of
healing miracles is to reaffirm us that God loves us. It is this assurance of
His love for us that helps us to profess our faith in the love of God even in
illnesses and physical death.
Only with this faith in His
overwhelming love for us will we be enabled to overcome the illnesses and death
that comes from our selfishness. For in experiencing His
healing, we are empowered to do the same things that He did, to heal and to
bring life to others, to lead them from exclusion to inclusion, from their
hurts and sins to healing and wholeness. We can see this so often in our
lives. Some who have been healed by God suddenly become His
witnesses. They are now able to go beyond their hatred to forgiveness,
beyond their lack of concern to compassion and caring, beyond their dishonesty
and deceit to openness and truth. Yes, in healing others, we ourselves
become truly wholesome, for we are no more alienated. We become one with
others in love and joy.
And then when
biological death comes, we will no longer be frightened. A man who has
lived fully in this life will not cling on to this life anymore. In fact,
if many of us are so frightened of death, it is simply because we have never
lived. We ask for an extension of life because we hope that one day we
will find life. If we have lived a full life here on earth, we will not
cling to life here because we would be too happy to go, to seek a higher form
of life in the life hereafter – with God and Jesus forever – the resurrected
life. We will be too willing to move on instead of clinging to this life.
I think the
worst thing that can happen to us is to come to the end of our lives and
realize that we have never lived. The saddest tragedy for many of us is that we
all know how to make a living, but we do not know how to live!
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
