Ressurection of Jairus Daughter - Image via Wikipedia

As we journey through the Gospel According to Mark, the reading today is a two-for-one healing adventure.  Sandwiched between the story of Jairus’s daughter, a woman who suffered hemorrhages for 12 years touched the cloak of Jesus without his knowledge.

She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.”
Immediately her flow of blood dried up.
She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

When Jesus became “aware at once that power had gone out from him,” he asked “Who has touched my clothes?”  The suffering woman “fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth.”

He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you.
Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”

In the story of Jairus’s daughter, her father (a synagogue official) found Jesus at said to him:

“My daughter is at the point of death.
Please, come lay your hands on her
that she may get well and live.”

During the time Jesus took to heal the hemorrhaging woman, the daugher of Jairus died.

Disregarding the message that was reported,
Jesus said to the synagogue official,
“Do not be afraid; just have faith.”

They made their way to the official’s house.  Jesus entered it with a few of his disciples.

He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,”
which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!”
The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around.

The Daughter of Jairus by James Tissot (Brooklyn Museum)

Jesus acknowledged the faith of the woman who touched his clothes – simply because she was desperate to be healed of her affliction of 12 years.  She believed that only to touch Jesus would heal her.  For the daughter who died, Jesus said to her father to “just have faith.”

I think that so much of our spiritual afflictions could be eliminated if we would just have faith.  What I see is that few of us have faith and even fewer of us have the patience for the Holy Spirit to change our hearts and minds through faith.  We want to pray once to God and that’s it!  Boom!  Affliction gone!

For example the woman today, “suffered for 12 years” with her affliction and she “suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had.”  Like many of us, she tried many things and none of them worked.

What Jesus teaches us today is that through faith in him we can be healed.

I pray today for the intentions of the readers of this blog.  May God bless you with first an openness to change, courage to have faith, patience through times of hardship and perseverance to realize God’s plan for you.

†

You might also like these related posts from cinhosa:

When your loved one is possessed by a demon

Searching for God

Get off the sin cycle

Ending pride, ignorance and injustice

Today we remember Saint John Bosco

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Tagged: Catholic, Catholicism, Christianity, faith, healing, Prayer, Protestant, religion