Homily for the Week of July 1, 2012

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2012 Wis 1:13-15;2:23-24 • 2 Cor 8:7,9,13-15 • Mk 5:21-43 In 1959 a play called The Miracle Worker, was first performed at the Playhouse Theatre in New York City. It was the story of Helen Keller, a young girl who became deaf and mute soon after her birth because of a sickness and Annie Sullivan, a 20 year old teacher. It was the story of Annie's struggle to teach Helen language by bringing her to a well, giving her water, and spelling the letters W A T E R on Helen’s hand. The Miracle Worker is now a popular movie. Jesus is also the most famous of all miracle workers. For the next many weeks we will be reading selections from the Gospel of St. Mark, the Gospel of Miracles. We will hear many stories on how people came to Jesus with all kinds of emotional, physical and spiritual sicknesses -- many of them similar to the reasons why we today come to Jesus. In today’s reading Mark gives us the story of two women who were in a medical crisis -- a woman whose sickness prevented her from being part of her family, and a young girl of 12 who apparently was considered dead. Jesus touches them and restores both of them back to health. We give the name miracle to both of these events. But talking about miracles to 21st century Americans is not easy unless we clarify what we mean by miracle. Most people you talk to today will laugh at you if you bring up the topic of miracles. A miracle is an unexplainable phenomenon outside the normal range of human experience. It is supernatural. It defies scientific explanation. In the Bible miracles are always related to the teaching and authority of Jesus over human nature. Jesus uses miracles to teach us that he has the power to heal and to forgive. It is not a question of magic or some unexplainable trick. Jesus is not a magician. Unfortunately, most people today think of miracles as the power of God in human affairs that answer some of our needs. Quite often people might pray for miracles by bargaining with God. We tell God we will do something special if God will do this for us. The request might concern the cure for a disease, the protection of a loved one, finding a job, or winning the lottery. In any case, the desire is for a divine effect far beyond the normal in our lives and in our way. Notice in our Bible stories today. There was no bargaining. Jairus, the little girls father, didn’t go to Jesus and tell Jesus he would do a certain thing if Jesus cured his daughter. Jairus merely believed that Jesus could do it. A woman who has been sick all her life comes to Jesus and asks to be healed. She had gone to the best doctors, had gotten all kinds of advice about her illness, but she never got better. In fact, she got worse. And sadly, many believed that her illness was a punishment for her sins. But she has heard that Jesus can cure. The sick woman believed that if she could come close enough to Jesus to touch his clothes she would be healed. And she does. Jesus says to her: your faith has saved you, go in peace and be healed of your disease. In both cases the miracle followed an act of faith in Jesus. As you listen to the words of Jesus here in this church Sunday after Sunday after Sunday there can be great comfort and hope. Whenever we hear that Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead and quieted the storms, we come to realize that the way things are is not the way things will always be. God's desire for us and the world is not chaos and fear but wholeness and peace. Miracles in life rarely come in the same way as they do on the pages of the Bible. Sometimes I have heard people ask why miracles don’t seem to happen today as they once did in Jesus’ day. My response is that perhaps we are simply asking for the wrong kind of miracle. It is not that miracles have stopped. On the contrary, miracles happen every day. There are unexplainable cures, cancers that go into mysterious remission, wayward children who finally find a sure path to follow, or marriages wounded by human failure that finally are put back together. But often, when we pray for a miracle, we are asking for an answer to our prayers in a particular fashion and in our time frame. We are not being truly filled with faith that God can effect a miracle for us. The greatest miracles I have witness over my 53 years as a priest is the miracle of forgiveness in the sacrament of confession. But why is this miracle so rarely asked for today? Often we too can be afraid or ashamed of going to Jesus for help. Maybe we may be afraid that we are not good enough. Or afraid that God will turn us away. So often we substitute faith in things or people rather than in Jesus -- things like burning candles in front of statues, or TV preachers who yell at us telling us how bad we are. Or paying money to fortune tellers or tarot cards to uncover our past or clarifying our future. All we need to do is to open your Bible each day to the Gospel reading for the day, read a sentence or two, then spend 15 minutes to talk to Jesus what that sentence means to you. In so doing you are opening your heart and soul to yourself and Jesus. Faith is trust in God even when the evidence or reasons seem to contradict what we would expect. Our life is made worthwhile, not so much by what we have or even what we have accomplished but by our faith. Maybe we ought to look upon Jesus as the person on the other end of that 911 line. He is ready to comfort us, give us direction when our life seems filled with violence -- our own violence. He wants us to stay on the line till we give him the whole story. God loves us without conditions. All we need do is to open the door to him. None of us is really worthy of miracles in our lives, yet God wills that we be well and blessed. Thus miracles can and do happen today, as they did in Jesus’ day. If you need proof all you need to do is to travel to Montreal and visit St. Joseph’s Oratory and Brother Andre. Miracles are stories of God’s power and ability to enter our world in ways beyond our comprehension..Those of us who have done that have found out that Jesus can do not only the unexpected but even the impossible. Jesus said that everything is possible to one who has faith. But to one who has no faith, no explanation is sufficient.