What is our role in the great marvels that God wants to work today? The suffering woman in this Gospel shows us the way.
Mission of Divine Mercy
Homily: 2024-06-30 Faith, So That God Can Act
There was a woman who had had a flow of blood for 12 years who had suffered much under many physicians. So we have this woman who has been suffering for a long time. And it's both a physical ailment, but in that society it was also considered something that made her impure. And so she had to, so it was, felt also as a shame that separated her from people. And so on top of this physical suffering there's this sense of isolation and shame. And it's been going on for a long time, 12 years, 12 long years. And it said, "And she had spent all that she had and was no better but grew worse." So she had tried to do everything she could humanly, but it wasn't working, nothing was working. And it had cost her a lot, cost her all her money. So on top of all that there is now poverty that she is having to deal with. And so she has tried human means, but that's good because we know God has given us human means, for instance, medical science and so forth, which can often be very helpful. But in this case it wasn't able and it just left her poverty stricken. And so this situation of first, which is so painful, but what's striking is how she responds. Because this very pain becomes the, she uses it to create a space in her for God's help. And to draw her even more strongly to Jesus. And so sometimes pain can be very destructive, making a person bitter and losing hope. But here we see her, this very pain and suffering is intensifying her prayer, her prayer to the Lord. And so the pain, as I say, becomes like a, like digging a space in her for the Lord. And so what does she do? So it draws her to Jesus. And that's, that when, when suffering draws us to Jesus that can be a great gift then, draws her to Jesus. And she doesn't, she's not able to touch Jesus or she doesn't touch Jesus because of her situation, which will be impure, but she only touches the very fringe of his garment. And then it's striking what the gospel says. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him, immediately turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched my garments?" And as the disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing around you and yet you say, 'Who touched me?' You know, all these people are pushing against him." So what was so special about her, because she didn't touch him. And so it's normally something that he couldn't have felt at all. And it's very striking the way the gospel reports this, which is unusual in the gospel, it says, perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him. As if it wants to emphasize her, her action, how powerful her action was like, it was her action which drew this power from him. Of course, Jesus knew what was happening and he had to obviously consent to this, but the gospel is emphasizing that power is going forth from him, perceiving in himself as if she was the one who made this happen. And so what is special about her, who doesn't even touch him? Why does, with all these people pressing around her, why does he feel something special when she touches her garments? Why does he experience something special, this power going out from him? And so he says it very clearly. He says, "Butter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease." Why doesn't Jesus say, "My divine power has made you well?" Because that's what made her well, right? It's his divine power. Why doesn't he say that? And so it's true that's part of what made her well, his divine power. But Jesus wants to emphasize and to honor her faith. Because not everybody who was pressing in around him was drawing the same power from him. But the reason the power, why she drew this power is because of her faith. And so this is helpful for us to remember, for instance, I think it is like in the COVID situation, when a lot of people weren't able to receive Holy Communion. Is that limit the ability of God to give his graces? What is the one thing that limits his ability to give his graces? It's not physical separation, it's lack of faith. And so Jesus is highlighting her faith. In fact, in a few verses later, speaking to the synagogue official, he'll say, "Do not be afraid, just have faith." So what he's so strongly emphasizing is faith. And this gospel is a great example of the Charism that the Lord has called our little mission to, "faith so that God can act." And that's so, as I've often said, but I'm repeating it here because there's a lot more people listening now to these homilies now, since we've started sharing the messages, this Charism of the mission is not just for the members of the mission, but it's what the Lord wants the mission to share for this time, faith so that God can act. In such a terrible situation, in such a desperate situation that we're living today, human efforts can sometimes help, and so it's good for if we can do something humanly, it's good to do that. But they're insufficient for the situation today, they're not enough. Human strength, human intelligence, human organization, human plans are not able to save us from this situation. We need God to act. And just that recognition, that's very striking that the 12-step programs, which have been so successful for helping so many people struggling with different forms of addiction, begins by the person recognizing that they themselves cannot get out of this addiction, that they need to turn, and originally sometimes it's been just a higher power, but it's originally that they need to turn to God, and that's so key for our society. If our society thinks that we're going to be able to fix this situation by our own, it's just going to get worse and worse. Our society has to humbly recognize that only God can save us. Humbly and with trust, we need God to act. But if God is the only one who can do it, but what else is necessary, because God has the desire and has the power to do it, what is lacking still? Because we have our role to play, where God wants us to cooperate, and that's what we see here in the gospel. The God has willed that so many things depend on our cooperation, on our faith. Jesus could have healed that woman he didn't need for her to come up and touch him, but he wanted to manifest, he wanted her to make that act of faith, and he wanted to manifest it, to use her as an example, that our faith permits these graces to flow, and that's what our Lord to St. Faustina said so often, that he's able to give his mercy and proportion to our trust, to our faith, give his mercy and proportion to our trust and faith. So that's why he invites us to make that special act of faith and trust Jesus I trust in you. And so in these times that we're living, that's why God is emphasizing so much the need for faith, because he wants to act in our times, in a way that he said like never before, but he needs our faith. We have the fans, the fans on the side of this chapel, which I think are very appreciated, right? We're glad that fans here, and you notice that those fans, they have something coming out of the fans, right, they have the little cord, electrical cord, and so what does that have to do with faith so that God can act, right? So those fans, no matter how good the fans are, if they're not plugged in, they don't do us any good, right? They have to be plugged in. And so faith is like what permits, and so even if we have a lot of electricity coming to this little chapel, and we have good fans, but if the fans aren't plugged in, they're not helping us. And so like with faith, faith is like that act of plugging in so that the graces of God, like this electrical current, the graces of God can flow. And so that's a little simple analogy of faith is like plugging in to God, making contact with God. It's like this woman by her act of faith, so what permitted the graces to flow was not the physical contact with Jesus, like so many people pressing around him, but it was her act of faith. Jesus didn't say woman, because you touched my garments, you have been healed because there's a lot of people touching his garments, but it wasn't the fact of touching his garments, it was Jesus says her faith. And so faith again is like what puts us in contact with God so his graces can flow. And of course we won't always see that result immediately. This woman had waited long years, 12 years, I'm sure she had been praying for a long time. And so sometimes we're praying, and we don't sense it right away, we don't sense God's response right away, but that's often because God wants even to give us even greater graces. And so Jesus didn't just want to heal this woman physically, but he wanted to give her eternal life. And so it's not only physical healing that he's transmitting, but it's graces of her faith in him is to lead her to an eternity of joy. And so our poor little mission has also been a trial of like what we've experienced here, which like a lot of you is often a long trial where we're praying and we don't see the results of our prayer right away, but it's often God preparing those graces, I mean preparing greater graces in us. And what's striking for us is that we're seeing that even already now, already now so many people are telling us, for instance, the graces that they're receiving through the messages that the Lord has given us to share or through coming out here. It's striking for me to see people coming to the mission right now because it's so hot, so hot and so human. But so many people are telling us, people who have been visiting in recent weeks telling us of the graces that they experience coming out here to the mission, and often going up here, our little tepeyak hill is very simple, but the graces that they're experiencing. So for us, that's already signs that the Lord is giving, but signs which are just the first signs of the graces that he's going to be pouring out. So this mission which is built on faith so that God can act, so my point was that there were already seen some of this action of God in what he's doing right now. I mean, it's very striking to listen to so many people talking about the great, again, the graces either from coming here or just listening to the messages, and those aren't the graces that we're causing. Those are graces, obviously, it's the Holy Spirit. It's God himself acting, and so we had to do our part. So it's interesting right now because it was a year ago at the end of June when we began sensing, we had just made our community retreat last June, towards the end of June, the third week of June, and it was on that Monday, there was a reading about Abraham, having to leave his country, and I had sent something, that reading that I had never sensed before, that God was going to be calling us now the mission to be leaving a whole situation that we had been in, and heading off on a journey that we didn't know where it would lead to, but that beginning this new journey, which would involve publishing the messages that we've been keeping secret for a long time, and with all the consequences that that has brought. So that was a year ago that we began sensing that we didn't publish it till January, February, but because there was a long period of discernment and preparation, but so what's striking to us, because that was really a step in faith, there was really an act of faith, because like Abraham, having to take this step of faith, now sensing God was calling us to take a new step of faith, which was leaving behind, as I say, this whole situation in the church that we've been in, and not knowing all the consequences that that would bring, but that's why it's so encouraging for us taking a step to already see God acting, because again what's striking is that it's clearly God acting, it's clearly the Holy Spirit, it's clearly fruits of the Holy Spirit, of course there's a lot of opposition too, that's very expected, but what's amazing are the people who, their hearts have already been prepared, and they are already sensed, and so many people telling us how much hope and consolation the messages and our decision has been for them, where they often felt very alone in what was going on in the church, and so it's, as I say, for us that's already seen signs of God acting after we had to take those steps of faith, so the heroes, this, Jesus is, we don't know the name of this woman, but Jesus is raising her up as one of the heroes of the gospel, the heroes of the gospel are not the most powerful people, and it's not the successful people, and it's not the experts, those who are considered learned, it's not the authorities, who are the heroes of the gospel, and the gospel means that the true heroes, because the gospel means in God's truth, in God's light, who are the heroes? It's the simple people, especially the suffering people, because it's often the suffering people who have that simplicity, that woman, maybe she would never would have dared to try to come that close to Jesus, but because of her suffering, it's her suffering and faith which draw her, the suffering which has made her very humble, and then with that humility, the faith and the trust that her faith and trust which give her this like holy daring, this boldness, and so those are the heroes of the gospel, those are God's heroes, and society has a very distorted idea of who the heroes are, and this is showing us who the true heroes are, and that's important for the church, because the church also can make idols of the wrong persons, and so the heroes in the church should be the simple people, suffering people who respond with true humility and faith. So what comes right after this gospel, the gospel we heard today? What comes right after it, and Mark's gospel? What's the following gospel? So I'll read it to you. So think of why the Lord and his providence wants this to follow right after the gospel we just heard. So it's when Jesus goes back to Nazareth, and it says, "On the Sabbath he began to preach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished saying, 'Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom which has given him? What mighty works are being wrought by his hands? Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, and Joseph, and Judas, and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. So this is the Jesus that they have known like no other town in the world which has had that privilege of having Jesus physically present for so long. And so what is the response of this town which has been privileged above all other towns and all of humanity to have Jesus physically present among them for all his hidden years? What is the result they took offense at him? And Jesus said to them, "A prophet," so he's talking about prophets, "is not without honor except in his own country and among his own kin and in his own house." And this is a very surprising passage, like that surprising passage we heard in the gospel yesterday where it said, and he felt a power to melt him, this is very different, it says, he could do no mighty work there. He could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their lack of faith, their lack of belief. And so this town which had been privileged again among all others, the result was they felt they knew Jesus so well, you know, for other people Jesus was new, but no, they knew who Jesus was. They were very confident in their knowledge of Jesus, they were experts in Jesus. And so what was the, but they were experts, but their knowledge was human knowledge. And so the consequence was that they did not believe him. And so it says, the gospel says he could do no mighty work there, not because he was any less God, not because he was any less powerful, but because it is God's will that we cooperate by faith, and without that faith his graces don't flow. And just to give another simple example, say a person is very sick and there's a very extraordinary wise good doctor who learns that that person is sick and realizes what that person has. And so this doctor makes a house call. So it's maybe an unusual situation, but this doctor is willing to make that house call. And so the doctor comes, but the person doesn't trust the doctor. And so the doctor knocks and says, you know, yeah, I know you're sick and I know what's wrong with you. And the person says, no, I don't trust you. Go away. The doctor said, well, just let me come in now I can help you. No, I don't believe in you. I don't trust you. Go away. The doctor says, well, I've got some medicine for you. I'll leave it here. And the person says, I don't want it. I'm not going to take it. So in that case, what if that doctor really did have the medicine that that person needed? But is it helping the person? No. But is it because the doctor, is it the doctor's fault? Is it because the doctor didn't know what the person needed and didn't make an effort to help the person? So nothing is lacking on the doctor's part, but it's something else is needed. The person has to cooperate by trusting enough to take the medicine. I didn't say take a vaccine, right? I said, take the medicine. This is a different case. But in that case, so that's a little example of how faith is needed. God offers his part, but we also have to do our part, and God respects our freedom. And so there are things that he won't do unless we cooperate. And so faith so that God can act is a message of great hope because it means that no matter how bad the situation is, there is hope because there's not no evil, there's no problem which is greater than God. So that is a great hope for all the personal situations that we're facing, for all the situations that people are facing, for all the situation in the world. None of this is greater than God himself. So this is a message of great hope. God is calling us, so God has given us this hope and calling us to faith. And so in Holy Communion, in this act of Holy Communion here in the mass, it's not, the essential thing is not just to receive him sacramentally and physically because how many Catholics receive our Lord sacramentally, physically, but without faith. And so that, so the graces cannot flow. And so today is a day opportunity for us to renew our faith with our blessed mother, to renew our faith in the Lord with this woman, this poor woman of the gospel, this great hero of the gospel and with our blessed mother, renew our faith in our Lord Jesus so that by our faith his graces can flow in you and not just in you but through you for our world. Jesus, we trust in you, amen.