Replies

Monday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time

Commentary of the day
Saint Hilary (c.315-367), Bishop of Poitiers, Doctor of the Church
Commentary on Saint Matthew's Gospel, 9, 5-8 (cf SC 254, p 209f)

"The girl is not dead but sleeping"

This synagogue official can be understood as representing the Law of Moses who, when interceding on behalf of the crowd he had nurtured for Christ by preaching the expectation of his coming, asks the Lord to restore a dead woman to life... The Lord promised to help him and, to assure him of it, he followed him.

First of all, however, the mass of pagan sinners was saved together with the apostles. The gift of life reverted in the first place to the elect predestined by the Law and yet, before that, salvation was bestowed on publicans and sinners in the image of the woman. That was why this woman was confident that, coming upon the Lord as he passed by, she would be healed of her haemorrhage at the touch of the Lord's garment... In her faith she was in haste to touch the fringe of his garment, that is to say to attain, together with the apostles, the gift of the Holy Spirit emanating from Christ's body after the manner of a fringe. She was swiftly healed. Thus the cure intended for the one was also granted to the other, whose faith and perseverance the Lord praised since what had been prepared for Israel had been received by the gentiles... The healing power of the Lord contained in his body spread even to the fringes of his garments. For indeed God is neither divisible nor graspable in such a way as to be enclosed within a body. He himself shares out his gifts in the Spirit but is not divided among his gifts. In every place his power is touched by faith because it exists everywhere and is never absent from anywhere. The body he took did not restrict his power but his power took on the weakness of a body to redeem it...

Then the Lord entered the official's house, otherwise called the synagogue..., and many people mocked him. Effectively, they didn't believe in the God-man and laughed to hear him preach the resurrection from the dead. Taking the young girl's hand the Lord restored her to life, whose death, where he was concerned, was nothing but a dream.

'St. Bernard tells us that everything has come to us through Mary; and we may also say that everything has come to us through the priest; yes, all happiness, all graces, all heavenly gifts. If we had not the Sacrament of Orders, we should not have Our Lord. Who placed Him there, in that tabernacle? It was the priest. Who was it that received your soul, on its entrance into life? The priest. Who nourishes it, to give it strength to make its pilgrimage? The priest. Who will prepare it to appear before God, by washing that soul, for the last time, in the blood of Jesus Christ? The priest -- always the priest. And if that soul comes to the point of death, who will raise it up, who will restore it to calmness and peace? Again the priest. You cannot recall one single blessing from God without finding, side by side with this recollection, the image of the priest.'

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars