Daily Catholic Lectio
Sun, 30 June 2024
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24. 2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15. Mk 5:21-43
Just have faith!
There was a certain Elias living in a small village. His daughter, Miriam, was ill. The doctor who came to attend to her said to the father, “She can’t survive! There is no medicine for this disease!” Meanwhile, he was told about a wise man in the city. Elias goes to call him. “It’s enough that you touch my daughter,” pleads Elias. The wise man said, “I’m coming right away!” Elias was happy. There was now a little hope that his child would get well. A crowd blocked the wise man on the way. In the crowd, a woman with an incurable disease touched the wise man and was healed. Though he was surprised by the miracle in front of his eyes, Elias was just anxious about his daughter. “What if Miriam died?” As he was thinking so in his mind, the messenger from his home brought the news that the daughter was dead. Upon hearing this, the wise man said to the father of the daughter, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith!” The wise man comes to the house of the father and restores the daughter to life.
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Today we read in the gospel how Jesus restored life to two people. Though the text contains two distinct narratives, both are interrelated. Both affect each other. The central person in both narratives is Jesus. Both events are closely related. The woman suffers for twelve years, and the girl is twelve years old. In both places, the crowd acts as an obstacle. Touching Jesus, or being touched by Jesus, restores life. The narrative of the woman getting healed delays the second narrative, and acts as a kind of preparation for the second.
The woman with the discharge of blood suffers death in her body (because she loses blood every day), in her possessions (she spends a lot on her disease), and in her spiritual life (because of defilement, she feels alienated from God).
Her touch makes her whole. Jesus invites her to profess her faith. Through this act, he restores her to society.
Though the miracle delays the journey of Jesus towards the girl’s house, the father of the girl is strengthened in his faith. However, his faith is shattered when it is reported that the girl is dead. Jesus exhorts, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.”
In the face of death, the father is shattered. The first reading of the day attempts to answer how death came to be. The author of the Wisdom of Solomon attributes death to the envy of Satan.
In the second reading, Paul, who exhorts the Corinthian community to be charitable, sets Jesus as the model. “Though Jesus was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” These words are similar to what John writes of the incarnation: “The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” In order to make us live, God embraced death.
What are the lessons for us today?
(a) Our search for God
The father of the girl looks for Jesus. The woman with the discharge of blood looks for Jesus. Movement towards God means life; and movement away from God means death.
(b) Human haste and God’s delay
The father of the girl was hasty. His concern was that Jesus must arrive in his house on time. But Jesus delays. God works in his own time, and works well (Cf. Eccl 3:11).
(c) Don’t be afraid; just have faith
The exhortation of Jesus to the father of the girl is simple yet profound. In the face of death and negativity, we become afraid, anxious, and worried. But Jesus replaces them with one positive feeling, which is faith.
In the responsorial psalm, the Psalmist sings (cf. Ps 30), “You changed my mourning into dancing.” God changes our mourning to dancing, sorrow to sadness, and failure to victory.
Fr. Yesu Karunanidhi
Archdiocese of Madurai
Missionary of Mercy
Yesu Karunanidhi 
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