By Fr. Gustavo Martagon, SDB

The first reading is a song of believing optimism: “God did not make death, nor does he delight in destroying the living” (Wis.). God is not the God of the dead but of the living. In this passage, God’s will to give “eternal” life, meaning a true and consistent one, is revealed to us… God has created us to enter into a life-giving relationship with Him that begins in our earthly life and extends to eternal life. 

Jesus Christ is the Sacrament, the sign of that life-giving love of God: “When he was rich, he became poor, that he might make us all rich” (2 Cor 8. The natural life that God gives us – the pledge of eternal life – is fulfilled and increased in solidarity: to be in solidarity with one another, as God, as Jesus is with us. Those who come out of themselves find more life and not less. He who closes in on himself remains fruitless and dies. That’s the rule of the gospel. 

“Only by touching his cloak, I will be healed” “Talitha qumi” (Mk 5). Jesus, as the Son of God, produces “salvation” around him from his attitude of solidarity with those who suffer: He takes pity on the woman with an issue of blood, who is unable to be cured despite the effort she puts into it; He takes pity on Jairus, whose sick daughter dies. In Jesus, we discover sensitivity towards the evil of others, real and effective involvement in the problem of the other, an offer of “total salvation” that comes from God and touches the person in all his or her dimensions: “… Your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your disease.” 

We, too, are lucky enough to be able to meet Jesus, to gather around him, to listen to his message, to touch his clothes. The Eucharist is the saving mystery of Christ, in the visible signs of the liturgy: the community that gathers around its presider (who acts in persona Christi), the Word of God that is proclaimed, the Bread and the Wine… they are like “the hem of Jesus’ garment” that we can touch and be healed, not from a magical attitude (God without us) but from an attitude of personal faith (God through our faith). We, too, “stand by and watch visions,” amazed at what Jesus is able to do in us. And of what we are capable of doing if we trust in Jesus and are ready to follow him authentically: “Your power multiplies man’s efficacy and the work of your hands grows daily in his hands, O Lord” (liturgical hymn).