Year B. 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

St. Augustine’s Church, Limerick

Last weekend I was in Lourdes with the Diocesan pilgrimage. So many people from all over the world come there, presenting their ailments to Jesus who says “come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” and to Our Lady’s maternal care. They come with various physical illnesses such as cancer, arthritis, and heart problems but also personal, spiritual wounds of grief and fear depression and relationships problems, addictions and disappointment.

In the lovely sunshine at the Grotto Mass the first day, I referred to the singer Taylor Swift who, as you probably know, is in Ireland these days. Her new album has an interesting title, ‘The Tortured Poets’ and a lot of the songs in the album have to do with the personal torture pains of heartbreak, criticism by others, bereavement or mourning, anger, disappointment. Her songs provide words to name the ways we can all identify with of being tortured in big or small ways by something going on in our lives. It can be a sense of guilt about something in the past; it can be a worry about an illness or a condition we have; it can be fear of the future, and, of course, it can be the heartbreak that comes from some problem in our relationships or in our family life. One of the songs Taylor Swift is famous for is entitled “Shake it off”. She explains that because she has become a celebrity, she has found that very often her life is subject to all kinds of scrutiny by other people. She says: “I guess the way that I deal with it is to shake it off.”

At Lourdes people get a chance to “shake off” anything that is dragging them down by handing their problem or burden over to God who cares for us, the God who is close to us, the God who cares for us, the God who is full of mercy, slow to anger, abounding in love, giving us strength, setting us free to love.

Of course, we don’t have to go to Lourdes to do that. In faith, we can hand over to Jesus our personal situation of needs here and now. Today’s Gospel tells us the story of two people who did that and the story of either of them could be our story. Both were in extreme situations – Jairus’ daughter dying and the woman having spent so much on cures to no avail.

Jairus pleaded on behalf of his dying daughter. And even when told she was dead, Jesus said to him, “Don’t be afraid; keep on believing” and he performed the miracle. Jairus probably never forgot Jesus’ words “don’t be afraid, keep on believing” and those words to his daughter, “little girl, get up”.

The woman had suffered a haemorrhage for years. She believed that if she could only touch Jesus she would be healed. Remember for this woman, it wasn’t just a question of a physical ailment. According to the law of Moses, because of her bleeding, she was considered impure and had to keep distant from people. That would have meant probably she was isolated, she couldn’t be in relationship with people, she couldn’t get married or have a family. She probably suffered great loneliness. But once she reached out and touched Jesus, Jesus wanted to meet her. That’s why he kept looking around to find her. And then came the moment of the personal encounter and Jesus says, “go in peace, your faith has restored you to health”. Jesus wants her to be healed but also integrated back into society, into company with others.

Today in the Gospel, as well as getting the consoling messages about Jesus wanting to heal us, we are seeing just who Jesus is. In John’s Gospel we hear Jesus define himself as “Life”. “I am the Life”. As the First Reading tells us, God never intended death and the tortures of ailments, physical or personal, to be part of our life. That happened because of the Devil’s work of brining fatal poison into the world. It was “the devil’s envy that brought death into the world”. But God sent Jesus who is Life to restore our life. He has power over death. Jesus wants us to have life and be fully alive in union with God and with one another.

In today’s Gospel we receive an invitation to keep on believing. Maybe we’re faced with an illness or there’s something going on in our lives that seems to have no solution. Perhaps we’ve experienced a setback, a failure or a bereavement recently that has left a sense of void in our lives. Perhaps we’re suffering anxiety, we’re afraid. The stories and words of today’s Gospel call us to keep faith.

One last point. If we find relief in our faith in Jesus, then, as St. Paul in the Second Reading reminds us – it’s up to us how to give relief to others, contributing to others who are in need, financially, personally and socially. We remember the example of Jesus who though he was rich, he became poor for our sake, to us rich out of his poverty. In the exhibition at the back of the Church today, we see many examples of Irish women religious who in the past 100 years have reached out in all kinds of situations to continue Jesus’ healing mission of bringing life.