XVII- O.T.: Gen18:20-32, Col 2: 12-14, Lk 11:1-13

It is a feature of Luke’s gospel that Jesus is often to be found praying. And, it is no surprise that having observed this frequent activity of Jesus, his disciples are moved to want to pray like him. So, Jesus takes the opportunity not only to teach them a prayer, but also to teach them the way to pray: persistently.

In this parable Jesus puts the granting of the man’s request down to his ‘persistence’, and it is a particular type of persistence, an impudent or shameless persistence. It seems as if the reward comes to the man because he is shameless in asking and not simply because he persevered.

We might be able to see what to make of this interpretation if we look at Abraham’s entreaty in the book of Genesis that God not destroy the city of Sodom. Abraham knows how impertinent he is being in this dialogue with God, for he uses such rhetoric as he perseveres in asking for more and more.

Abraham knows he is trying his luck with God, but he keeps going. He is shameless in his persistence. Although Abraham seems to be trying to manipulate God through his skillful bargaining and humble, persistent intercession, God is actually being moved to mercy by the goodness of a few innocent souls.

According to Jesus, prayer is a child-father affair. It is a family affair based on a relationship of familiarity and love. Jesus uses the imagery of father here in order to correct the dominant image of God as the boss or the king who is to be revered rather than loved.

Jesus has come to deepen our understanding of what it means to have a relationship with God. Jesus teaches us that prayer is about simply and confidently calling God, Father. And because he is our Father, we can be bold and persistent. When children speak to their parents, there is hardly a right or wrong way. They simply focus on one thing, to put into words and body language what they feel in the heart.

So prayer is an activity that flows out of a relationship. We do not learn how to pray better, we become better women and men of prayer when our relationship with God becomes more intimate like that of father and child. If you want to improve your prayer, focus on improving your personal relationship with God, our Father.

A colleague asked C.S. Lewis if he really thought he could change God with his prayer for the cure of his wife’s cancer. Lewis replied: "Prayer doesn't change God; it changes me." William McGill summed it up this way. "The value of persistent prayer is not that God will hear us but that we will finally hear God." Keep in mind that Jesus has taught us to address God as Father.  A loving Father listens to his child, but he does not blindly endorse every request.  Instead, the loving Father provides what is needed, including discipline. God always answers prayer, some times it may be a NO. Bishop Sheen has this comment on prayer: "The man who thinks only of himself says prayers of petition. He who thinks of his neighbor says prayers of intercession (like Abraham). He who thinks only of loving and serving God says prayers of abandonment to God's will, and that is the prayer of the saints." 

Prayer is the lifeblood of an intimate relationship with the Father. But believers often have questions about its power and effectiveness.

Will God’s plans fail if I don’t pray? God is not subservient to believers or dependent upon their prayers. The time we invest in speaking with Him involves us in the work that He is doing in our lives and in the world, but He will carry on without us. Laboring alongside the Lord is our privilege.

Does my prayer (or lack thereof) impact God’s work? Scripture indicates the answer to this question is both yes and no, depending upon the situation. There are times when God’s purpose is set. He is in control and has determined the best course. In the Old Testament, the Lord often prophesied what He would do and then brought those events to pass.

In other cases, “you do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2). There are some good things that He holds back until we put out prayerful hands to receive them. But because God is a loving Father, He also pours our blessings that we wouldn’t even think to request.

A mother sent her fifth grade boy up to bed. In a few minutes she went to make sure that he was getting in bed. When she stuck her head into his room, she saw that he was kneeling beside his bed in prayer. Pausing to listen to his prayers, she heard her son praying over and over again. "Let it be Tokyo! Please dear God, let it be Tokyo!"
When he finished his prayers, she asked him, "What did you mean, ‘Let it be Tokyo’?"
"Oh," the boy said with embarrassment, "we had our geography exam today and I was praying that God would make Tokyo the capital of France."

Prayer is not a magical means by which we get God to do what we want. Prayer is an inner openness to God which allows his divine power to be released in us. Ultimately, the power of prayer is not that we succeed in changing God, but that God succeeds in changing us.

Prayer is essential for Christian family life. To remain faithful in marriage, the spouses need to pray, not only individually, but together.  They need to thank God and to offer intercessory prayers for each other, for their children and for their dear ones.    Daily prayer will help married couples to celebrate and reverence God’s vision of human sexuality and to honor life from conception to natural death.  Here is St. John Marie Vianney’s advice to a couple:  "Spend three minutes praising and thanking God for all you have. Spend three minutes asking God’s pardon for your sins and presenting your needs before Him. Spend three minutes reading the Bible and listening to God in silence. And do this every day."

Let us not allow lame excuses to turn us away from prayer: Prayer expresses our awareness of our need for God and our dependence on Him. The deeper our dependence on him, the more genuine our prayer will be.

XVI O.T.Sunday: Gen 18:1-10; Col 1:24-28; Lk 10:38-42

The central theme of today’s readings is the necessity of listening to God before acting. The key to the Christian life is setting priorities: Jesus Christ first, then everything else. The only way really to learn that lesson is to spend some time every day, "sitting at the feet of Jesus." 

There have been many interpretations of this story of Mary and Martha over the years. It is obviously a story about contrasts between doing and being. Mark tells us that when Jesus called the apostles to follow him, he called them for a dual purpose: “to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message” (Mark 3:14). The need, on the one hand, to be with the Lord, to know him, to fellowship with him and be nourished by his word and, on the other hand, to do the Lord’s work, to serve the Lord in others, to proclaim his message of love in word and deed, brings us to a conflict.

Living in this competitive world we try to be more productive than others. We have to use as much of our time to produce results. Martha exhausts her time and energy to serve Jesus who is their special guest. We often judge what is better based on its monetary value or on the honor and prestige it can give us. We often fail to give importance to developing deeper relationships with God and with others. Indeed, there are times that it will be better for us simply to be with and to listen to other people. There are times when it will be better for us to rest and to re-charge than to be overly anxious about providing for our material needs. There are times when it will be better for us to be more reflective than to be productive.

It is a radical call to each and every one of us to set our priorities right. Jesus perhaps feels that it was not enough for Martha to welcome the guest, but that she should also pay attention to what he has to say first and then go ahead to take care of material things later. Being hospitable means not only providing refreshment for your guests but also includes conversing with them and listening to them. Otherwise the hospitality is the kind you get in hotels which has nothing personal about it. Mary recognizes that her guest is more than he appears to be. And so she sits at his feet, listening to him as a disciple would normally do.

Both the spiritual and temporal are good, but they are when attended to in their right order. Hence Jesus says: “It is Mary who has chosen the better part…” Jesus wanted her as he wants us today to set her priorities right by doing the first and most important things first.

There is a story about a man who was preparing his favorite breakfast of hot oatmeal when his daughter came rushing in with his little four-year-old grandson. "The babysitter has been delayed," she explained, "and I've got to go to work. Will you keep Bobby for a few hours?" Granddad said, "Sure," and his daughter left. Then Granddad scooped up two bowls of oatmeal. "Do you like sugar?" he asked. When Bobby nodded he asked, "How about some butter, too?" When his grandson nodded again he asked, "How about milk?" "Sure," the boy said. But when the grandfather placed the steaming bowl of oatmeal in front of Bobby, the boy made a face and pushed it away. "But when I asked you, you said you liked sugar, butter and milk," grandfather protested. "Yeah," Bobby answered, "but you didn't ask me if I like oatmeal." Granddad forgot to ask the most elemental question. Sometimes we forget to do that, too. We never set priorities. We never list in our own minds what those things are that matter most. We allow life to buffet us here and there and we never center in on those things that really matter. 

Much more important than what we can do for Christ is what we can be for him, and what he can be for us. Martha was doing all kinds of tasks, and that was good. But Mary was listening to him, letting him serve her, being his close, intimate friend, and that was even better, "the better part". Friendship with Christ is the one thing needed. Therefore, our task here on earth is to make a conscious choice to shape our lives accordingly, to keep Christ first, to live from his love and for his love. 

We should put aside the work we do for the Lord in serving others and just spend some time being with Him, talking to Him and listening to Him, fully aware of His holy presence in our souls. We may also recharge our spiritual energy by means of our personal and family prayers, our meditative reading of the Bible and our participation in the celebration of the Holy Mass. Do we have a program of daily fellowship with the Lord? Many people fulfill this by assisting daily in the Eucharist where they can also hear the word of God. Others schedule a holy hour or quiet time when they can pray and read the word of God.

We need listening Marthas and serving Marys: Martha has become a symbol of action-oriented, responsible people who get the job done. Our world and our parish churches need such dynamic and generous men, women, boys and girls. We need them for different services.  And also we need to train them to listen to God first.

We need to be good listeners like Mary at home and in the workplace. Active and busy as we are, we have to find time every day to listen to God, to our spouse, kids and neighbors. Listening and quiet caring are essential for the success of married life, of family life and of the rearing of children with love, affection and a sense of discipline. Human love begins at home, and it begins with listening.

It is through people and our interaction with them that God speaks to us and acts in the world. And so, the kind of our “being” is more important to God, our family, or even a stranger we meet than what we do for them. Our gracious presence to them is more important than a lot of works we do for them.

Like Martha, many of us are anxious and troubled with so many things. Let us pray and listen to Jesus to discover what is better for us.

XIV- Ordinary Sunday

XIV- O.T. Is. 66:10-4; Gal. 6:14-18; Lk. 10:1-12, 17-20

Today’s scriptures remind us that announcing the good news of the kingdom by words, deeds  and life is not the task of only a few, but is rather a task for all baptized Christians.

Luke’s Gospel has two stories of Jesus sending out his followers to go and spread the Good News. In chapter 9 Jesus sends the Twelve apostles and in chapter 10 he sends seventy two disciples. Matthew’s Gospel has only one: the sending of the Twelve. Scholars believe that Luke’s story of the sending out of the Seventy two is his way of emphasizing the universal scope of the message of Christ, as well as the mandate of universal evangelization, that every one is obliged to spread the message of Christ. The mission of the Twelve, according to Matthew, was limited to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mat 10:6). The mission of the Seventy two has no such limitation. According to Jewish tradition there are twelve tribes of Israel and seventy two nations of the earth. The sending of the seventy two disciples, therefore, symbolizes the sending of the message of Christ to the whole world.

Every Christian is called to participate in the spreading of the message of Christ through a commitment to prayer and action. Jesus goes on to detail the disposition we should bring to the work of evangelization: a spirit of meekness and vulnerability, a spirit of politeness and adaptability to the changing and challenging local situations in which we find ourselves in the course of mission work.

The seventy two disciples were surprised to see that, acting in Jesus’ name, not only physical sicknesses healed but “even the demons” submit to them (verse 17). While they were preaching and healing, Satan's influence was rolling back wherever they spread the Good News.

They were told to travel light relying on the common people to feed and protect them. It is easy to get entangled in the things of this life. When we have too many things, they tend to possess us rather than we possess them. They make us their slaves. When we have too many modern apparatus with us we occupy most of our time playing with them. The less we possess the more we are free to devote our time in the service of the Lord.

Jesus commanded them never to stop or turn back; but to go ahead until they reached their destination. Not even greet any one on the way. It may sound a bit too impolite. But the urgency of the mission should keep one targeted and not tarry and get delayed on the way. With our anxiety and worries, we often tend to turn back and defy His command.

 “Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose direction and begin to bend.” Says, Walter Savage Landor. So it is of utmost importance that we should always be conscious of our goal.

When Lot and his family fled from the wicked men God commanded him to go forward and never turn back until they reached the mountain top. But Lot’s wife turned back to see what was happening behind her, and she became a salt statue.

Orpheus is a Greek mythical figure. His music was enchanting. One day he was shocked to see that his wife was dead. So he went to the underworld and played so mournfully that the god of the underworld, was moved by his music. Hades, the god of the underworld agreed to allow Eurydice, his wife to return with him to Earth on condition; he should walk in front and not look back until they both reached the upper world. He set off with Eurydice following him, and in his anxiety as soon as he reached the upper world he turned to look at her, and she vanished for the second time.

So the missionary should remain fully focused on the goal ahead, not to look back or around on anything that might distract the purpose of mission.

Jesus is saving the world, but not all by himself.

He wants to do it with our help. From the pope down to the most recently baptized believer, we all share the same mission: to help Christ build up his Kingdom. We are players on his team. And there are no bench warmers on his team.

It is worth noticing that Jesus sent them out two by two. Those two could be husband and wife of a family. So the first evangelizers started the mission in their own homes. A husband should evangelize the wife and wife should evangelize the husband and both together should evangelize their children and neighbors.

Let us start preaching the gospel in our families by leading exemplary Christian lives, in which spouses love and respect each other, raise their children in the spirit of obedience and service, discipline them with forgiving love and teach them by persistent example to pray, love and help others by sharing their blessings. (L-13). 

XIII.O.T. 1 Kgs. 19:16,19-21; Gal. 5:1, 13-18; Lk.9:51-62

A guard in charge of a lighthouse along a dangerous coast was given enough oil for one month and told to keep the light burning every night. One day a woman asked for oil so that her children could stay warm. Then a farmer came. His son needed oil for a lamp so he could read. Another needed some for an engine. The guard saw each as a worthy request and gave some oil to satisfy all. By the end of the month, the tank in the lighthouse was dry. That night the beacon was dark and three ships crashed on the rocks. More than one hundred lives were lost. The lighthouse attendant explained what he had done and why. But the prosecutor replied, “You were given only one task: to keep the light burning. Every other thing was secondary. You have no excuse.”

A temptation is a choice between a good and evil. But perhaps more insidious than temptation is conflict where one must choose between two good options. The lighthouse keeper in our story found himself in such a conflict situation. So also are the would-be disciples in today’s gospel story. In such cases the good easily becomes the enemy of the best.  One must then say no to a good thing in order to say yes to the ONE thing necessary. Today’s gospel is a sequence of four incidents and encounters with people who could have become followers of Jesus but who were held back by ulterior concerns and motives. Each encounter highlights a different concern.

The first incident is the encounter between the messengers of Jesus and the Samaritan villagers. The concern that holds the Samaritans back from accepting and following Jesus is patriotism. Samaritans and Jews were bitter enemies. The Samaritan villagers had probably heard about Jesus and what he was doing and were interested. But as soon as they learnt that Jesus and his disciples were Jews and were heading for Jerusalem, their admiration turned into opposition. Patriotism and devotion to the national cause is, of course, a good thing. But when national interest becomes the spectacle through which one sees all reality, including spiritual and eternal reality, then one is in danger of losing perspective. Some times people see things only in the light of political affiliations. Whatever wrong the party of my affiliation does, I blindly see them as good even if they stand in direct opposition to biblical and moral values. Which is happening in our country these days a lot.

The second incident involves a man who says to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replies, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke (9:57-58). Why did Jesus say that? Probably because he perceived that here was a man who valued financial independence and security. It is a good thing to have high economic goals so that one could provide adequately for oneself and for those under one’s care. Yet when this stands in the way of wholehearted following and service of God, then something is wrong. You cannot follow God without a  single hearted devotion.

The third incident is that of the man who wanted first to go bury his father before following Jesus. Burying one’s parents is part of the command to “Honor your father and your mother” (Ex:20:12). So here is a man with high moral principles, a man who keeps the law and is highly concerned for his religious duties. Again this is a very good virtue. Yet Jesus is saying that we should not allow religious observance to immobilize us and keep us from following Christ who is always on the move into new territories and new challenges.

Finally there is the man who wants to go and say farewell to his family before following Jesus. He wants to follow the example of Elisha who bid his family farewell before becoming Elijah’s disciple. Elijah threw his cloak over Elisha. The prophetic garment was a symbol of property rights. Elisha receives his state as both servant and possessor of Elijah’s powers of miracles. Elisha goes back home and takes a final fare well from all. He kills his oxen and breaks the yoke he used to plow, to cook the oxen, symbolically telling he is no more going to go back to resume this work any more but will be in God’s service ever after.

This man who wants to go back and say good bye to his family has high social and family values. One could only wish that all men could be this sensitive to let their families know their whereabouts at all times! Yet before the urgent call of the kingdom of God, social and family concerns take a back seat. 

These stories of extreme loyalty to one’s country or party, economic security, or even religious observance, or social and family concerns becoming hurdles to our loyalty to God are cases what Jesus disapproves. The call of Jesus to discipleship is characterized by complete self renunciation.  The response has to be   immediate and unconditional. We simply don't know where God will lead us or what he may ask us to do. When we join Christ's army, we have to hand him a blank check.

These stories show that to follow Christ is to follow him unconditionally. Do we have a clause “if’ in our following of Jesus ?  “I will follow Christ on the condition that …” If we can complete the sentence then we are in the same situation as any of these well-meaning but mistaken disciples. Jesus will not accept a second place in our lives. He will be first or nothing. It is all for Jesus or nothing at all. The discipleship of Jesus is unique in the magnitude of its reward.  And the journey is not that easy. Let’s seek his grace that we may learn to rely wholly upon God, plugging all our efforts in life into his grace. 

XIIth Sunday in Ordinary Time: Zech 12:10-11; Gal 3:26-29; Luke 9:18-24

Among the fables of Aesop is one entitled The Hunter and the Woodman. A Hunter was searching for the tracks of a Lion. He asked a man felling oaks in the forest if he had seen any marks of the lion’s footsteps or knew where his lair was. “Oh yes,” said the Woodman, “I will take you to the Lion himself.” The Hunter turned pale from fear and stuttered, “No, thanks. I did not ask that; it is only his track that I am looking for, not the Lion himself.” In our dealings with God and with one another we are often like this hunter. We profess that we stand for something but when the full implication of what we profess stare us in the face we draw back.

This is what we see in today’s gospel story. Peter, speaking for himself and for the disciples, rightly confesses his faith in Jesus as the long-expected Messiah. When Jesus reveals to him and the disciples the implications of his being the Messiah they begin to draw back. By confessing Jesus as the Messiah the disciples show that they have gone above the level of the “people” who take Jesus to be nothing more than a prophet. Jesus then proceeds to tell them the implications of what they had just said: “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Luke 9:22).

Now, the disciples are not ready for this. They are looking for the footprints of the lion and Jesus offers to take them face to face with the lion. They begin to withdraw. This withdrawing is more dramatic in the gospel of Matthew where Peter takes Jesus aside and tries to talk him out of the suffering and death he was destined to undergo. But Jesus would shun him and dub him Satan for seeing things from the purely human rather than from God’s point of view.

For the truth of Jesus' identity as Christ can only really be understood in the light of the cross.

The joy of following Christ necessarily involves the pain of self-denial and self-sacrifice; this is the paradox of the gospel. But crosses, when borne together with Christ, always lead to resurrections.

Christ teaches this lesson in the context of his own passion and death, which he has just predicted to his band of followers. He affirms,

explicitly and uncompromisingly, that all his followers must “take up the cross. Jesus goes so far as to say that those who refuse to accept the sacrifices and sufferings that God sends or allows will “lose their lives.”

Suffering, when we bear it with faith and unite it to Christ's suffering, is like the oven that cooks saints, the fire that purifies our hearts of selfishness.

We all really want to be followers of Jesus, but many refuse to pay the price of discipleship. There is no consolation at all in being a half-hearted disciple. There is no freedom in that. Even though we all desire a pain- and trouble-free existence, we will never grow by running away from God's purifying action.

Our suffering is an opportunity to come to better know who Jesus is. This means that every human life is sacred and every moment of human life is an opportunity to recognize Christ's presence among us.

From June 21^st to July 4^th the Catholic Church in US is observing Fortnight for Freedom. There are mainly two reasons for this. On August 1^st the government mandate will take effect which would compel religious organizations to include coverage for abortion inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception in their employee health care plans. And if the potential Supreme Court rulings legally redefine marriage, that could also cause serious religious freedom issues for adoption agencies run by the Church and other religious groups.

If Jesus said he came to give life in fullness, then he defends life from conception to natural death. As followers of Jesus it is our duty to defend and safeguard the weak ones in our society who can not stand up for their own rights to life.

In union with the whole Catholic Church in United States let’s pray earnestly that the culture of death may not prevail over the weak frail human existence.

XI-OT. (C) II Sm 12: 7-10, 13; Gal 2:16, 19-21; LK 7: 36-8:

A woman at the airport waiting to catch her flight bought herself a bag of cookies, settled in a chair in the airport lounge and began to read her book. Suddenly she noticed the man beside her, helping himself with cookies from the cookie bag she bought. Not wanting to make a scene, she read on, ate cookies, and watched the clock. As the daring “cookie thief” kept on eating the cookies, she got more irritated and said to herself, “If I wasn’t so nice, I’d blacken his eye!” With each cookie she took, he took one too. When only one was left, she wondered what he would do. Then with a smile on his face and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and broke it in half. He offered her half, and he ate the other. She snatched it from him and thought, “Oh brother, this guy has some nerve, and he’s also so rude, why, he didn’t even show any gratitude!” She sighed with relief when her flight was called. She gathered her belongings and headed for the gate, refusing to look at the ungrateful “thief.” She boarded the plane and sank in her seat, then reached in her baggage to fetch her book, and what she saw made her gasp with surprise. For there in front of her eyes was her bag of cookies. Then it dawned on her that the cookies she ate in the lounge was the man’s and not hers, that the man was not a thief but a friend who tried to share, that she was the rude one, the ungrateful one, the thief.

Often it happens that the one pointing the accusing finger turns out to be the guilty one - the complainant sometimes turns out to be the offending party. In the gospel the Pharisee thinks he is the righteous one who is worthy to be in the company of Jesus and that the woman was the sinful one, unworthy to be seen with Jesus. In the end Jesus showed each of them where they really belonged and the woman was seen as the one who was righteous and more deserving the company of Jesus than the self-righteous Pharisee.

The celebrated American, twentieth century evangelist Billy Sunday once said ‘I am against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot. I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist.’ King David and Simon the Pharisee agreed with this approach. Like many of us, they were against other people’s sin. At Simon’s dinner Jesus tells a story in response to Simon’s scandalized shock that Jesus should offer forgiveness to the penitent woman. The story is about two debtors. Simon sees only one at his table. He failed to see the other, who is himself. Nathan the prophet tells a story to David to uncover the king’s adultery. It is about a rich man who robs a poor man of his prized ewe lamb. Simon and David condemn themselves in the response they make. David confesses his sin as the woman acknowledges hers but Simon’s guests are left questioning: ‘who is this who forgives sins?’ We are not told if they ask for forgiveness for themselves. They do not show faith but it is the woman’s faith, not her dramatic gesture that has saved her.

It is easy to notice the fault of other people while being blind to our own faults. It is easier to hear the other person than it is to hear yourself snoring.  Great men and women of God have been, all without exception, people who are so aware of their own inadequacies that they are hardly surprised at other people’s shortcomings. People who delight in criticizing others betray their lack of self-awareness. In the end they discover that they themselves are indeed the cookie thieves that they accuse others to be.

The problem of the Pharisee was his notion of sin and holiness. For him the woman was an “occasion of sin” to be avoided by godly people. Jesus corrects him: it is not what you avoid that counts, it is what you do. The Pharisee might indeed have avoided occasions of sin, but he did nothing for Jesus’ need or love him. He opened his house for Jesus, but he did not open his heart for him. The woman, on the other hand, attended to the practical needs of Jesus. Jesus accepts the woman’s external show of love as a clear manifestation of inner faith and love. And Jesus concludes the story saying she loved much, so she is forgiven much.  

Simon has been so successful in life that he has come to think he doesn't need God. Sure, he still goes to the synagogue. After all, he is a Pharisee, one of the religious leaders. But he goes to show how upright he is, not to beg for God's grace. Is my coming to church an effort to show how religious I am ? The woman who knew she was a sinner and needed a Savior, is able to see glory of Christ and experience his love.

But Simon is blinded by his arrogance and self-sufficiency, and so he sees nothing special in this rabbi from Nazareth. We often share Simon’s mentality, displaying an attitude of love-less-ness and harshness.   Let us remember that Simon’s self-sufficiency prevented him from acknowledging his need for the grace of God.  

There is Simon in each one of us. It's the part of us that keeps us from asking forgiveness and going to confession.

Today at this Eucharist, when we have Jesus as our guest of honor, let’s us open our hearts to him and pour perfumes of repentance at his feet so that we may be able to leave this house of God, hearing his consoling words, your sins are forgiven, go in peace.

Xth Sunday. O.T.

1 Kgs 17:17-21, 22-24; Gal. 1:11-19; Lk. 7:11-17

The central theme for this Sunday is that, in a world of broken hearts, God sees and cares for us in our grief. He has compassion on our miseries and gives us His healing touch. Widows were particularly vulnerable. They could easily starve to death without a son to support them. Both Elijah the prophet and Jesus know this, and show how merciful God is to widows.

In the first reading from the first Book of Kings, God directs a widow of Zarephath to take care of Elijah. Even though Elijah miraculously provides her with all the food she needs, she accuses Elijah of causing the death of her only son: "Have you come to call attention to my guilt and to kill my son?" She was so sure that her sins were the cause of his death. Elijah takes pity on her, and, in turn, complains to God about this.

Elijah’s miracle invites comparison with the miracle performed by Jesus in today’s gospel. There are obvious similarities. St Luke is aware that the widow of Nain reminds us of the widow of Zarephath.

In touching the bier, Jesus deliberately ignores the ritual uncleanness of the dead body, which required ritual purification by Jewish law. St Luke also wants us to see the significant differences between the power of Elijah and that of Jesus. In the case of the widow of Zarephath it is not altogether clear that the child is dead. But there is no such uncertainty in the case of the son of the widow of Nain. Evidently, Jesus is much greater than Elijah; he has raised a dead man and he has done this merely by speaking a few words to the corpse. Jesus will again resuscitate a dead body on the fourth day, even after decay sets in.

The raising of the widow’s son is not only proof that Jesus has direct access to divine authority; it also gives us an extraordinary insight into divine compassion. There is no indication that Jesus is concerned about the dead man himself. This is a miracle performed not for the sake of the son but for the sake of his mother. What matters to Jesus is her well-being. Without her son she would have been left with no means of support and no one to comfort her in her old age. So the raising of her son tells us that God is not only concerned with our ultimate destiny but also with our present needs in our life on earth. Jesus reveals the concern of a God who knows our needs better than we do.

The raising of the widow’s son also casts light on something less obvious – the love that Jesus has for his own mother. It is inconceivable that the man who showed such compassion to a complete stranger would not have been anxious about the fate of his own mother. And so this miracle helps us to understand that moment before his death when Jesus entrusted his own mother to the beloved disciple. The image of the widow of Nain mourning her son must surely make us think of Golgotha and another mother’s grief; a grief that at this point in the gospel still lies ahead.

The son of the widow of Zarephath brought  back to life by  Elijah died again.  The son of the widow of Nain brought back to life by Jesus died again. Lazarus raised by Jesus died again. Because our life here on earth is not meant to go on for ever. Those were signs to show the power of men of God over death, the only phenomenon over which men stand powerless. Death remained as a fearful entity till Jesus won the decisive battle over death and rose from the death. This miracle shows Jesus holds the key to death.

Starting with baptism, our life is a struggle against death. The moment we surrender to God, a new, vigorous, indescribable life will flow into our body transforming it into a glorious and powerful one. One can die only once. We Christians die with Christ at Baptism and so we live with him for ever.

The lesson of this encounter between Jesus and the widow of Nain is so simple: God cares about us..

No one asked him to perform this miracle; he took the initiative to intervene. He cares too much about us, in spite of our sinfulness, weakness, and brokenness and he suffers with us, giving meaning to our pain.

We know to what depths God’s compassion has gone. No one has ever suffered more than what Jesus suffered. No one had so much compassion on people as Jesus had. We never have to suffer alone.

For Christ's faithful friends, all suffering is temporary. We will hear Jesus say to us exactly what he said to the widow: "Do not weep."

On this tenth Sunday, God wants all of us baptized to be channels of His mercy to the helpless ones of our parishes, cities and villages.