OK, I think I see where you are coming from now. It all depends on what "makes whole" means. In the Douay verse 34 the word "whole" is said twice and very closely together. I can see a reasonable interpretation that they could have different meanings in this context. In my version (NIV) it says: "He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." But when I checked the KJV, it appears to agree much more with you. Therefore, if this context is correct, then I would agree with what NYer said: "It is her faith that has healed her, not our Lord's garment."
I have not heard before of the distinction between declarative faith and formed faith. From what you said, I gather that the woman, before she actually reached out and touched the garment, was on a path to hell had she dropped dead before she could reach Jesus. I really don't get that impression from this passage in any translation. What kind or number of works are required to move from one type of faith to the other? I ask because I find it unlikely that this woman's "first" work, given what we are told about her faith, was to touch Jesus' garment. What is the perfection mechanism in terms of works?
Just a personal remark here, and certainly not theologically educated:
Like the woman, when I sought Christ it was for my own reasons, and I too believed that He, and only He, could heal me--that if I could touch Him, or something intimately associated with Him, I would indeed be made whole.
That inner hope, and that hunger for wholeness, drove me to follow Him in the crowd, and just try to have a small touch, and that was the action I took based on that hope and faith.
To encounter Him in the Eucharist for the first time as an adult--was to receive so much more than I was able to envision at the time, so much more than I can understand even today. Now, we see darkly...
The second "whole" is not "whole" at all, but is "healthy". The Greek is "ygies" and the Latin is "sana" (familiar to us as "hygiene" and "sanitation").
So, the Latin and the Greek match, but the English of both Douay and KJV achieves the correct meaning only in context, "whole of thy plague/disease".
As we concentrate on the first "whole", we note that both the dictionary meaning and the gospel usage employ the word to mean "saved" in medical or otherwise physical sense, but a related "sothenai" is used in the supernatural sense. In Latin the distinctions disappears as both are transalted by St. Jerome as "salvus". Both Douay and King James render it sometimes as "whole" and sometimes as "saved".
I gather that the woman, before she actually reached out and touched the garment, was on a path to hell had she dropped dead before she could reach Jesus. I really don't get that impression from this passage in any translation. What kind or number of works are required to move from one type of faith to the other?
We don't know either way about her before she touched the garment, but if we assume that her disease represents sin, then she was burdened heavily by sin and was not saved in the spiritual sense. We also know that no fixed number of works of veeneration (or charity) produces well-formed faith, -- just like, borrowing your baseball analogy, no number of bases taken delivers victory. This is the meaning of St. Paul's epistles to Romans and Galatians, as well as the parable of the workers at the vineyard, that works by themselves do not save. But they form the faith.
The distinction between declarative faith and formed faith is very important in the dispute about sola fide. This is a good article about it:
Whether a Catholic will condemn the idea of justification by faith alone depends on what sense the term "faith" is being used in. If it is being used to refer to unformed faith then a Catholic rejects the idea of justification by faith alone (which is the point James is making in James 2:19, as every non-antinomian Evangelical agrees; one is not justified by intellectual belief alone).However, if the term "faith" is being used to refer to faith formed by charity then the Catholic does not have to condemn the idea of justification by faith alone. In fact, in traditional works of Catholic theology, one regularly encounters the statement that formed faith is justifying faith. If one has formed faith, one is justified. Period.
A Catholic would thus reject the idea of justification sola fide informi but wholeheartedly embrace the idea of justification sola fide formata. Adding the word "formed" to clarify the nature of the faith in "sola fide" renders the doctrine completely acceptable to a Catholic.
Conversion can be instantaneous, like that of the Good Thief, or St. Paul's, or this woman's. It could also be gradual and filled with setbacks, like St. Peter's or St. Thomas's. But fast or slow, it has to change the person.