July 04, 2016 Monday
14th Week
in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Hos 2: 16. 17c-18. 21-22
Gospel:Mt 9:18–26
While Jesus was speaking to them, an official of the synagogue came up to him, bowed before him and said, “My daughter has just died, but come and place your hands on her, and she will live.” Jesus stood up and followed him with his disciples.Then a woman who had suffered from a severe bleeding for twelve years came up from behind and touched the edge of his cloak. For she thought, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” Jesus turned, saw her and said, “Courage, my daughter, your faith has saved you.” And from that moment the woman was cured.When Jesus arrived at the official’s house and saw the flute players and the excited crowd, he said, “Get out of here! The girl is not dead. She is only sleeping!” And they laughed at him. But once the crowd had been turned out, Jesus went in and took the girl by the hand, and she stood up. The news of this spread through the whole area.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel
in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Today’s Gospel is about the stories of two females, a girl taken for dead at a very young age, and a woman suffering from hemorrhage. Jewish culture considered women as second-class citizens. Contact with blood and with corpses was also punished as violation of the law on ritual purity. If being in contact with blood was a violation of ritual purity, what could be said of the woman who for twelve years was bleeding profusely? If contact with dead bodies was similarly violative, what could be said of the little girl who was lying cold and dead?
The depth to which the status of these females had plunged in the eyes of society was matched with the heights to which their faith soared so mightily. Great faith empowered the synagogue official to believe that Jesus could bring his daughter back to life. Great faith made the bleeding woman believe that a mere touch of Jesus’ clothes could put an end to her hemorrhage of twelve years.
Jesus suffered two interruptions. The synagogue leader interrupted his preaching, while the woman interrupted his walking. But Jesus gave them full attention. He went in haste to the house of the synagogue official as requested. He also stopped walking and encouraged the woman who felt guilty for having stolen from him the energy that cured her hemorrhage.
God is not beyond reach, after all. Where faith is profound, God is around. Has your status gone lower than the status of the woman in hemorrhage? Are you so broke, feeling like dead because you have nowhere to go for help? Cheer up and keep the faith, for God is within reach! -(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM, MAPM, MMExM, REB. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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