The first readings for mass today are about the requirements in ancient times, to become a priest or a deacon. In both cases, the scriptures from the book of Timothy says that a potential bishop and deacon, must have only married once. There is a whole list of other requirements for potential bishops and deacons too, but the reading from the book of Timothy specifically mentions they must have only been married once. It is a shame really, that our priests can not marry too. It must be a very difficult thing to be alone your entire life, especially since our priests are usually moved around to different parishes too. Yes, they serve Christ and His church with more of their time, attention, love and concern than they might if they were married, but is it really right to require them to do so?
The first reading today also mentions women, but not in any type of leadership role. This may have been because the culture they lived in at that time did not value women as much as men. Women were required to be submissive to men and were not treated as equals. In fact, they couldn’t even own property. Only men could at that time.
In today’s gospel though, Jesus had a great deal of compassion for the widow who had just lost her son and was on her way to bury him. Jesus was so compassionate with her. She had lost her husband and now she lost her only son. Jesus did not want to see this lady continue to suffer. He did not want her to be alone for the rest of her life. Christ’s compassion in today’s gospel reading is beyond measure. This widow not only lost her husband, and her son, but since she couldn’t own property, she would lose her home and livelihood too. They say the loss of a child is an even harder thing to live with than the death of a spouse and this poor woman lost both.
The depths of Christ’s compassion for this grieving widow is just unfathomable. If Jesus was this compassionate for the grief and suffering that this poor widow was going through, don’t you think he suffers when we suffer too? So many people blame God when bad things happen, but it truly is not God’s will that we suffer. He can’t control all the little details of everyone’s life because if He did, we would simply be puppets instead of individuals who are made in His image, with an inherent human dignity and freedom of will of our own. It is not God’s will that we suffer and Christ had nothing but compassion for those who suffer too.
Can you image Jesus approaching the widow and telling her “Do not weep”? It makes you wonder if he reached out to hold her hand when he told her not to cry? Then, Jesus stepped up to the coffin and touched it. (They called a coffin a bier in those days.) When Jesus stepped up to touch the coffin, the pal bearers stood still. The whole thing must have seemed like a dream that no one could believe was really happening.
When Jesus said “Young man, I say to you, rise!” He sat up and began to speak. Jesus gave him back to his mother. Can you imagine the tears she must have had then? The gospel said that fear seized all of them and they glorified God. These people had witnessed a miracle that they thought could never be possible, and yet it was. Christ made it possible. Can you imagine the reaction of the crowd? It was no doubt a life changing event for everyone who witnessed it too. And that is the biggest reason Jesus performed miracles, to let the people know that God was real and that he really was God’s son. The people in today’s gospel story told everyone throughout Judea and the surrounding country about this miracle saying “God has looked favorably on his people!”
There is so much that you could learn from this gospel, so much that we all could. The Holy Spirit is the one who speaks to our hearts though. We can talk about the scriptures and think about them and discuss what we think they mean, but the scriptures are living words with a life all their own. The Holy Spirit lives in these words and He does not need a human being to convey the meaning to a person who reads these words. We are all just onlookers really, no matter how educated we are about the bible. We are like the crowd that witnessed Jesus raise a little boy from the dead, because he had compassion on his mother.
Today, let’s let the Holy Spirit speak to us as we go about our day. He comes unbidden like Christ did when he approached the widow and told her “Do not weep”. Perhaps we could try to have a little silence in our day today, and listen for his guidance in our lives. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us and to his church for a reason. It is because he can’t be here in person to guide us, but the Holy Spirit can.
