A few weeks ago, a video swept the internet about a little boy in Patrocinio, Brazil named João Miguel. In the video, João Miguel, without fear or hesitation and armed only with his simple, child-like faith, approaches Fr. Artur Oliveira as he’s giving his homily. He interrupts the priest and asks him to pray for his Uncle Flavio, who was hospitalized on a respirator with a new strain of the COVID-19 virus. João Miguel sounds a lot like Jairus and the hemorrhaging women we meet in our Gospel, who both showed the same fearless faith that led João Miguel to the steps of the altar. The kind of faith we need more of today.
If our readings today tell us anything it’s that faith in God saves. Our first reading from the Book of Wisdom assures us that “God did not make death the final dissolution of human beings.” [1] Creation has a positive goal. Our Psalmist agrees, singing praise to God with the faith-filled conviction that “no matter what kind of suffering or hardship we experience here on earth, a glorious resurrection of our bodies awaits us if we are faithful.”[2] And our Gospel proves it.
Today’s Gospel serves us a Markan Sandwich—a story within a story that’s typical of the Gospel of Mark. In the first story, Jairus, a synagogue official, risks the scorn of his community to beg Jesus to heal his dying daughter. In the second story, the hemorrhaging woman violates the law to seek Jesus’ healing power— the law that prohibited the ritually unclean from approaching anyone. In both stories, our petitioners set life-draining illnesses at Jesus’ feet, hoping for God’s help; in both stories, their prayers are answered; and in both stories, fearless faith in God through Jesus Christ heals and restores the victims to the fullness of life.
So what kind of faith are we talking about here? Well, you’ll notice that both healing stories involve touch. The woman touches Jesus’ cloak, and she’s healed; Jesus takes the little girl’s hand, and she rises. In both cases, “the inner conviction that physical contact accompanied by faith in Jesus’ saving power . . . was rewarded.”[3] So the faith that Jesus acknowledges in the woman and Jairus, the faith we’re called to imitate, requires an intimate encounter with Jesus. “The way to experience Jesus’ saving power is to reject fear and yield to faith, a deeply personal faith that comes into living contact with him.”[4] You’ll recall that the disciples were incredulous when Jesus asked who touched him. Everyone was touching him, but only one was healed, the one who set her fears aside and touched him with a hand of faith.
The meticulously literal among us may ask, “How do we touch Jesus when he’s not physically here to touch?” I offer two easy suggestions. First, we pray. “While some might approach prayer as if ordering from a menu, the purpose of prayer—be it petition, praise, or penitence—is to bring us into an encounter with the God of life who desires the encounter more than we do.”[5] In prayer, we spend time with Jesus, we talk with him, we lay our problems at his feet, and we listen for his guidance and inspiration through the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In prayer, we get in touch with Jesus.
Second, we come to Church and receive Jesus in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith, and the sacraments are the privileged place of encounter with the divine in Jesus Christ. Why? Because the sacraments are the visible sign of an invisible reality. So in the Eucharist, the visible signs of bread and wine convey the invisible reality of Jesus’ real presence—body, blood, soul, and divinity—among us. We can’t get much closer to Jesus than when we receive him faithfully in the Eucharist and carry him out into the world to do his will. In the Eucharist, we touch Jesus, and Jesus touches us.
Now, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that faith has gotten a bad rap—it’s considered irrational or naïve by modern standards, especially considering the seemingly endless pain, suffering, and death that accompany our human experience. It’s become downright unpopular to be a person of faith these days, and many are afraid to express their beliefs for fear of ridicule at best, and persecution at worst. Even Jesus was laughed at by the crowd in today’s Gospel when he suggested that faith would heal the little girl. But Jesus and Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman had faith in God anyway. The girl lived, and the woman was healed. That same faith carried Jesus up Calvary on Good Friday and proved three days later that fearless faith can even conquer death for good.
Through a “so-close-you-can-touch-him” encounter with Christ, our lives are no longer defined by the pain, suffering, and death we inevitably experience. United in faith with Jesus, we become the fearless daughters and sons of God we were meant to be from the beginning. Fearless faith, then, gives new meaning to our lives, even in suffering, “a meaning that is profound and ultimate, and stable no matter what may happen. . . . Men and women of this kind of faith face catastrophe or confusion, affluence or sorrow unperturbed, [they] face opportunity with conviction and drive, and [they] face others with self-forgetting charity.”[6] It’s no surprise that countless psychological studies confirm that people of faith are happier and healthier and that they rebound more quickly and permanently from illness and personal tragedy.
If you don’t believe me, ask João Miguel. A later video confirms that João Miguel’s prayers were answered. His Uncle Flavio came off the respirator within a week of João Miguel’s request for prayers and left the hospital not long after. When asked by Fr. Oliveira why his uncle got better, João Miguel proudly replies, “Because we prayed a lot, and God helped us!” Of course, not every prayer is answered the way we might wish, but fearless faith gives us the comfort of knowing that God will grant everything we request with faith and trust if it’s what’s best for us. “If God does not grant our request, it is because he has greater blessings in store for our benefit.”[7] João Miguel, Jairus, and the hemorrhaging woman are wonderful examples of the kind of fearless faith we all need to face life’s challenges, the kind of faith that heals us, saves us, and restores us to the fullness of life as daughters and sons of God.
Readings: Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24; Psalm 30; 2 Corinthians 8:7, 9, 13-15; Mark 5:21-43
[1] Daniel Durken, ed., The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2015), 1154.
[2] Jeffrey Cole, ed., The Didache Bible (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014), 632n.
[3] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, New American Bible, rev. ed. (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2015), 1663n.
[4] Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 110.
[5] Mary M. McGlone, “The Inside Story,” National Catholic Reporter 57, 8 (June 11-24, 2021), 19.
[6] Charles Hefling, Why Doctrines, 2nd ed. (Chestnut Hill: The Lonergan Institute, 2000), 20.
[7] Cole, 1323n.
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