Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa: XIII Sunday Of Ordinary Time
Below you can find the Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, for the XIII Sunday of Ordinary Time B, Sunday 30 June 2024.
Mk 5:21-43
A key reading that can help us in understanding today's Gospel passage (Mk 5:21-43) is verse 33: the woman afflicted with hemorrhages, after stealthily being healed by Jesus, is invited to come out, to show herself (Mk 5:30). And she does, but she does so "in fear and trembling" (Mk 5:33).
These are not two random adjectives.
We find them in the Letter to the Hebrews (Heb 12:18), in the chapter in which the author reflects on the two covenants, the one stipulated on Sinai (Ex 19) and the one renewed with the Passover of Jesus.
The author of the Epistle, speaking to his readers, says that they did not approach a tremendous and dramatic event, such as that recounted in the Theophany on Sinai: in that case, the spectacle was so terrifying that even Moses said. " I am terrified and trembling." (Heb 12:21).
Moses too, before the Sinai Theophany, is like the hemorrhagic woman before Jesus: both afraid and trembling.
But why was Moses afraid? Certainly, because the theophany was awesome: lightning, thunder, earthquakes, and fire. But not only because of that. There had to be a space, a definite distance between the people and the place of God's presence. There was to be no contamination. Anyone who approached the mount of Theophany, or contaminated the sacred space, was even to be put to death (Ex. 19:12)! Even in the Temple, a clear separation would later be made between the sacred place par excellence, accessible to a few and only at certain times, and the rest of the people.
Then we are faced with two different ways of seeing God: that of Moses, where one cannot approach God. That of the hemorrhaging woman, where there is the opposite: he who touches God lives.
If anything, one can die not from touching him but from not touching him. Indeed, the woman's whole plan, once she heard about Jesus, revolved around the possibility of a touch: “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” (Mk. 5:28).
The woman is trembling, because she is afraid. After all, the woman has an idea of God that is common to so many, a God from whom to snatch salvation, a God who is frightening.
Jesus urges her to come out, not confirming this face of God to her, but overthrowing it, and he does so with words capable of healing the heart: "Daughter, go in peace" (Mark 5:34).
First of all, this is the only time in Mark’s Gospel when Jesus calls someone "daughter". This woman, who dared to touch the God-with-us, has fully found her identity, her truth, that of Daughter of the Father.
This daughter can now go in peace, because the time of fear is over, and the time of trust and love has begun. To touch Jesus, the ultimate presence of God among us, and to be touched by Him, to meet Him, is no longer forbidden. There is no longer a separation between the sacred and the profane…
This Meditation was originally published on the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Please click here to read the full text.