Life-Restoring Compassion: The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024

                                                   Life-Restoring Compassion:

The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 

June 30, 2024

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Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24; Psalm 30; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43

 

These are extraordinary statements found within the book of Wisdom when the author states, “God did not make death,” and “God formed humans to be imperishable.” It is a remarkable statement of the created world that contains death and suffering as meaningful and just plain wrong. Death makes no sense, and it causes so much anguish. Humankind for millennia has struggled with the wrongness of death and perishing, especially when we know God to be good, loving, and omnipotent. We trust in God because we want to escape from time to live forever in a realm where we are remembered, reconciled, healed, and reunited with our loved ones. We want to return to paradise when we lived in right relations with God and others.

 

The Gospel passages ratify that God desires life and wholeness. It is part of the ministry of Jesus when he raises Jairus’s daughter and heals the woman with hemorrhages. Jesus reveals that God desires life in its fullness. The hemorrhaging woman was given life back to her because she is restored to the community. She had been a dependent upon society who had to care for her by feeding her and tending to her wounds. As a healed person, she can now contribute to the building up of society and the common good. Jairus’s daughter was given back her future that was robbed through her death. She now has a promise of fuller flourishing.

 

Jesus reveals to us the mind and heart of the Creating God, and what he reveals is God’s compassion. It is a compassion that gathers up, heals, and transforms, and it points to life in a future yet unknown. We would like to know from Scripture how Jairus’s daughter made choices after having life restored. We would like to know how the hemorrhaging woman reestablished connections with her family and if her actions were marked by gratitude. How does God’s compassion transform us so that we show gratitude for a second or third chance in life? 

 

Christianity does not shy away from the harsh reality of suffering, moral evil, and death. It embraces Jesus as the model for self-giving as he chose suffering on the cross. Our hope in the resurrection, that is new life, reveals to us the compassion of God. Jesus was given new life so that death would no longer be meaningless and that we know the rightness of God choosing life over death. God’s rightness lies in the expectation that we will always have life.

 

Compassion is the new paradigm by which we give life to others. A kind word, a healing touch, a forgiving look can give another person new life. Our human acts of compassion always point to the restoration of life and ensure that every tear is wiped away. Our compassion mirrors God’s compassion. Our life, new life, depends upon our compassion to a world that is hurting. There is always a rightness to compassion.

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

Monday: (Amos 2) For three crimes of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke my word; Because they sell the just man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals.

 

Tuesday: (Amos 3) I brought upon you such upheaval as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah: you were like a brand plucked from the fire; Yet you returned not to me, says the Lord. So now I will deal with you in my own way, O Israel!

 

Wednesday: (Ephesians 2) You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.

 

Thursday: (Amos 7) Amos has conspired against you here within Israel; the country cannot endure all his words. For this is what Amos says: Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be exiled from its land.

 

Friday (Amos 8) On that day, says the Lord GOD, I will make the sun set at midday and cover the earth with darkness in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentations.

 

Saturday (Amos 9) On that day I will raise up the fallen hut of David; I will wall up its breaches, raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old, That they may conquer what is left of Edom and all the nations that shall bear my name.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Matthew 8) A scribe approached and said to him, "Teacher, I will follow you  wherever you go." Jesus answered him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head."

 

Tuesday: (Matthew 8) Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep. They came and woke him, saying,
“Lord, save us!  We are perishing!”

 

Wednesday (John 20) So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

 

Thursday (Matthew 9) "Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home." He rose and went home. When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to men.

 

Friday (Matthew 9) As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples.

 

Saturday (Matthew 9) “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

 

Saints of the Week

 

June 30: The First Holy Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church (c. 64) were martyrs under Nero's persecution in 64. Nero reacted to the great fire in Rome by falsely accusing Christians of setting it. While no one believed Nero's assertions, Christians were humiliated and condemned to death in horrible ways. This day always follows the feast of the martyrs, Sts. Peter and Paul.

 

July 1: Junipero Serra, priest, was a Franciscan missionary who founded missions in Baja and traveled north to California starting in 1768. The Franciscans established the missions during the suppression of the Jesuits. San Diego, San Francisco, and Santa Clara are among the most famous. Serra’s statue is in the U.S. Capitol to represent California.

 

July 2: Bernard Realino, John Francis Regis, Francis Jerome, S.J. are known for their preaching skills that drew many to the faith, including many French Hugeunots. Regis and his companions preached Catholic doctrine to children and assisted many struck by the plague in Frances. Regis University in Denver, Colorado is named after John Regis. 

 

July 3: Thomas, apostle, is thought to have been an apostle to India and Pakistan and he is best remembered as the one who “doubted” the resurrection of Jesus. The Gospels, however, testify to his faithfulness to Jesus during his ministry. The name, Thomas, stands for “twin,” but no mention is made of his twin’s identity.

 

July 5: Elizabeth of Portugal (1271-1336), was from the kingdom of Aragon begore she married Denis, king of Portugal, at age 12. Her son twice rebelled against the king and Elizabeth helped them reconcile. After he husband's death, she gave up her rank and joined the Poor Clares for a life of simplicity. 

 

July 5: Anthony Mary Zaccaria, priest (1502-1539) was a medical doctor who founded the Barnabites because of his devotion to Paul and Barnabas and the Angelics of St. Paul, a woman's cloistered order. He encouraged the laity to work alongside the clergy to care for the poor. 

 

July 6: Maria Goretti, martyr (1890-1902) was a poor farm worker who was threatened by Alessandro, a 20-year old neighbor. When she rebuffed his further advances, he killed her, but on her deathbed, she forgave him. He later testified on her behalf during her beatification process, which occurred in 1950.

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• June 30, 1829. The opening of the Twenty-first General Congregation of the order, which elected Fr. John Roothan as General. 
• July 1, 1556. The beginning of St Ignatius's last illness. He saw his three great desires fulfilled: confirmation of the Institute, papal approval of the Spiritual Exercises, and acceptance of the Constitutions by the whole Society. 
• July 2, 1928. The Missouri Province was divided into the Missouri Province and the Chicago Province. In 1955 there would be a further subdivision: Missouri divided into Missouri and Wisconsin; Chicago divided into Chicago and Detroit. 
• July 3, 1580. Queen Elizabeth I issued a statute forbidding all Jesuits to enter England. 
• July 4, 1648. The martyrdom in Canada of Anthony Daniel who was shot with arrows and thrown into flames by the Iroquois. 
• July 5, 1592. The arrest of Fr. Robert Southwell at Uxenden Manor, the house of Mr Bellamy. Tortured and then transferred to the Tower, he remained there for two and a half years. 
• July 6, 1758. The election to the papacy of Clement XIII who would defend the Society against the Jansenists and the Bourbon Courts of Europe.