252. Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (C)

Meditations no. 242 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Our Lord’s compassion on the widow at Naim. Apostolate.

Ahead, Mount Thabor stood out above a fertile valley. Our Lord was coming up the road towards the city of Naim, with his disciples and a great multitude of people. As they approached the city gates they met another group, but a sad and silent one. A dead man was being carried out to burial: the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Perhaps no one in the funeral procession had ever heard of Jesus, or of his divine power to raise the dead; in any case, none of them tried to stop him, not even the poor woman who was weeping for her only son.

Jesus sees these people’s deep grief. He could have passed by or waited until they called him. But he didn’t He took the initiative, because he was moved by a widow’s sorrow. She had just lost all she had, her son.

The Evangelist explains that Jesus was moved. Perhaps he even showed it with tears, as he did when Lazarus died. Jesus Christ was not, and is not, insensitive to the suffering that stems from love. He is pained at seeing children separated from their parents. He overcomes death so as to give life, to reunite those who love one another. But at the same time, he requires that we first admit the pre-eminence of divine love, which alone can inspire genuine Christian living. Christ knows that the crowd around him will be awed by the miracle and will spread the story all over the countryside. But he does not act artificially, just to produce an effect Quite simply, he is touched by the woman’s suffering and cannot help wanting to console her. So he goes up to her and says, “Do not weep.” As though to say, “I don’t want to see you crying; I have come on earth to bring joy and peace.” And then comes the miracle, the sign of the power of Christ who is God. But first came his compassion, an evident sign of the tender-heartedness of Christ the man.

Our Lord came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” The young man sat up at Jesus Christ’s command. And his body, a corpse only a second ago, felt life surging through its veins once more; his dry lips spoke again, and the light came back into his eyes. And Jesus gave him back to his mother.

The young man rose from the dead, and his widowed mother was filled with joy. Every day, comments St Augustine, there are people who rise from the dead spiritually; and their mother, the holy Church, rejoices. Death overpowered that young man’s body; it overpowers these people’s souls. Anyone could see that that young man was dead; but the state of these people can only be seen by those who try. Christ, who knows the dead, sought the young man out. Only he, who knew the dead, can bring these people back to life. If he had not come to raise the dead, the Apostle could not have said, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.”

We will often have occasion to address these words of command to the many people we meet who are far from God. Let’s not imagine that it will be difficult to do anything with them; let us rather think that Christ will be especially understanding with them, because they don’t know him; he is only waiting for the tiniest movement of their hearts to give them the grace of conversion, using us as his instruments. Our Father put it like this: The power to work miracles! How many pitiful souls, dead, even rotten - quatriduanus est enim (he has been dead for four days) - you will bring back to life. How many corpse-like young people you will tell, Adolescens, tibi dico, surge! - young man, I say to you, arise! And how many you will see going ahead with their vocation because they are sincere, and perhaps going ahead even better than yourself. Our Lord was passing by and they called on him without seeing him; Christ was passing by, in you, and they recognized him, they asked him for help, and their eyes were opened to God’s wonders.

In our interior life there should be a constant rising again, through acts of contrition.

Jesus Christ’s teaching applies to our own lives too. We have come to know our Lord and have followed in his footsteps, and we can make our own the lesson of merciful compassion that God gives us. We can each live out this scene in our own personal life, in our own interior life. I’ve often told you, and I won’t get tired of repeating, that the interior life is made up of many events like the one at Naim. Coming back to life: what does that mean, if not beginning and beginning again?

In the interior life we are beginning again every minute, with acts of contrition, sorrow and reparation.

We need to come back to life every day, in big things or little; because, seeing the want of generosity in our life, we are impelled to say, as Peter did on realizing Christ’s greatness: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. If we don’t understand this, it means that we are proud, and we are not fighting to overcome our concupiscence and pride. Now, in our Lord’s presence, faced with the majesty of God - of Christ the fisherman - mindful of the wretchedness we are made of, and recalling the failures brought about by our pride, we can only say like Peter, “Lord, I am a sinner.” And to us now, as to Peter on that occasion, Jesus Christ repeats what he told us when he first caught us in his net and called us: ex hoc iam homines eris capiens. From now on you will be a fisher of men; with a mandate from God, with a mission from God, and with your effectiveness given by God.

We owe everything to God: our existence, our faith, our vocation, and our perseverance; and also the continual beginning again which is the law of the wayfarer. Everything is his. To us belong sorrow, repentance, and the desire which he himself places in our hearts to be faithful once more, to be better. We need to be sorry for the faults we have committed, sincerely sorry, crying out in silent supplication to our Saviour: If you, O Lord, should mark our guilt, Lord, who would survive? But with you is found forgiveness: for this, we revere you. My soul is waiting on the Lord; I count on his word. My soul is longing for the Lord … Because with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.

Jesus Christ will undoubtedly hear us and call us personally - tibi dico, surge! I say to you, arise - as he called the young man at Naim. Therefore, if our Lord, in his goodness, prevents other people from seeing our weakness, and they think that we are better than they are, and praise us and act as though we are not sinners, we should think and meditate deep in our heart, with real humility, tamquam prodigium factus sum multis: et tu adiutor fortis. I have come to seem a prodigy to many people, but I know very well that it is you, O God, who are my strength.

Beginning again and again, as often as necessary.

God our Lord pours out his grace on us and brings us back to life every day, every minute, whenever necessary. All we need to do is to be humble, recognizing how wretched we are, and weeping when we see the clay we are made of. The widow on her way out of Naim didn’t ask for anything - but what could be more eloquent than sincere tears? Jesus Christ wishes us to weep for our sins and detest them; he wishes us to make the humble resolution to trust more in him and less in our own strength. He wishes us to renew our self-giving and our desire to begin again.

Haven’t you noticed the way families look after valuable ornaments or decorative pieces, a vase for example; how they take care lest it should get broken? Until one day the baby happens to be playing nearby and knocks it over. The precious souvenir is dashed to pieces, and all the family are very upset. But they immediately set about repairing it. The pieces are gathered up and carefully glued together, and in the end it is restored to its former beauty.

However, when the broken object is a simple piece of crockery or just a piece of earthenware, it is usually enough to get some simple rivets, clips of iron or other metal, to bind the fragments together. The pot or vessel thus repaired takes on an original charm of its own.

We can apply this lesson to our interior life. When we are faced with weaknesses and sins, with our mistakes - even though, by God’s grace, they are of little account - let us turn to God our Father in prayer and say to him, “Lord, here I am in my wretchedness and frailty, a broken vessel of clay. Bind me together again, Lord, and then, helped by my sorrow and by your forgiveness, I shall be stronger and more attractive than before!” What a consoling prayer, which we can say every time something fractures this miserable clay of which we are made.

Trusting in Jesus Christ’s merciful heart, let us make the firm, specific resolution today to turn back to him and to our Directors for help, in order to begin again as often as is necessary. Our Founder insists: Let’s not be surprised to discover our frailty. Let it not come as a shock to see how easily our good behaviour breaks down, for little or no reason. Have confidence in the Lord, whose help is always at hand. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” No one. If we approach our heavenly Father in this way, we will have no grounds for fearing anyone or anything. If we act like that we will then have a heart big enough to take pity, like Jesus, on the people who are far away from him, and bring them to his sheepfold, heal their wounds and bring them back to life if they are dead.

You have changed my mourning into dancing; O Lord my God, I will thank you for ever. Let us go to our Lady, whose pleas touch her Son’s heart, and ask her to make the scene we have been contemplating in this time of prayer come true in our life and in the lives of those around us. She will obtain this grace for us, because our Lord is always ready to repeat miracles like the one he worked that day at the gates of the city of Naim.