Touch, Tears, and Resurrection Hope

The Scriptures today set us on a road that runs through grief and into hope, past human limitation and into the touch and word of Christ that bring life. We meet a father who wins a battle yet loses a son, a woman who has lived twelve years of invisibility, and another father who must keep walking with Jesus through the aching delay of a fatal interruption. These stories know our world well: the complexity of leadership, chronic illness, medical fatigue, bills we can’t pay, crowded days that never slow down, news that shatters us mid-sentence, and the hidden fear that perhaps it’s too late. Into all of this, Jesus speaks, touches, and raises.

David’s Tears and the Father’s Heart

David’s army prevails, but his victory is hollow. Absalom, his own son and rebel, is dead. David’s cry; “My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you”; is as raw as any parent’s grief. The king’s public win becomes private ruin; duty and love tear him in opposite directions. Many know this fracture: a presentation went well, the numbers are up, the photo looks perfect; yet the heart is breaking for a child, a sibling, a parent lost in addiction, estrangement, or the consequences of their choices.

David’s lament is also a theological window. He wishes to die in his son’s place, and in Christ that wish becomes reality. The true Son takes our place; the true King bears our rebellion. God is not aloof from David’s tears; in Jesus, God shares them and then goes farther, entering death so that our shame and folly do not have the last word. Psalm 86 teaches us to bring this to speech: “Listen, Lord, and answer me. Have mercy on me, for to you I call all the day.” Lament is not unbelief; it is faith refusing to be silent.

A Touch That Tells the Truth

The hemorrhaging woman has lived twelve years of depletion; financially, physically, socially, spiritually. She is not only ill; she is isolated. She dares a small, hidden act: “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” Jesus stops. Power has gone forth, yes, but more importantly, a person has reached out. He refuses to let her healing remain anonymous, because he wants more for her than a fix; he wants communion. She confesses “the whole truth,” and Jesus calls her “Daughter.” The healing is not merely medical; it is relational, restoring her to God and community.

Many carry similar hidden hemorrhages: anxiety that never turns off, an injury that will not heal, mounting medical debt, unresolved trauma, a fractured trust in the Church or in family. These often tempt us to settle for an impersonal brush with the sacred; a podcast, a quote, something quick to ease the ache; without the vulnerable encounter that names the pain and receives a new identity. Jesus is not a vending machine of miracles. He is the Lord who longs to meet us where we are bleeding and to tell us who we are.

Do Not Be Afraid; Only Believe

While Jesus is still speaking with the woman, the worst news arrives for Jairus: “Your daughter has died; why trouble the Teacher any longer?” This is the sentence that tries to end hope. Jesus answers the sentence, not with an argument, but with a command to the heart: “Do not be afraid; just have faith.” He then creates space for the miracle; he clears the room of ridicule. Some rooms in our hearts are too crowded with cynicism to admit resurrection. Sometimes the holiest thing we can do is to escort mockery to the door, inside us and around us.

In that quiet, Jesus takes the girl by the hand: “Talitha koum; Little girl, I say to you, arise.” Mark preserves the Aramaic because love remembers the exact words that raised it from the dead. Then comes a detail we easily miss: “Give her something to eat.” Resurrection requires nourishment. After a crisis, those who are “raised” need meals, rest, therapy, time, Sacraments, patience, and friends willing to walk at their repaired pace. The Church is called to speak life and then to set the table.

The Holy Delay and the Twelve-Year Thread

Mark interweaves these stories on purpose. The woman has been ill for twelve years; the girl is twelve years old. One life has been ebbing away the entire time the other has been growing. Jairus’s miracle arrives through the delay caused by the woman’s need. The interruption is not an obstacle but the road. God’s timing feels unbearable precisely when it is doing the deeper work; teaching us to trust when clocks and crowds are against us. In a culture that worships instant results, Jesus forms us in a faith that walks with him even when the news is grim and the hallway is long.

Witness of the Saints: Blaise and Ansgar

Today the Church also honors two bishops whose lives echo the Gospel’s themes of healing and mission.

• Saint Blaise, a fourth-century bishop and martyr, is remembered for tender pastoral care and a remarkable healing: a child saved from choking on a fishbone. The traditional blessing of throats asks that our voices be healed and used for blessing, not harm. In an age of corrosive speech and constant clamor, Blaise teaches us to guard and offer our words as instruments of life.

• Saint Ansgar, the “Apostle of the North,” carried the Gospel to Scandinavia in the ninth century amid discouraging setbacks; raids destroyed churches, progress stalled, and success seemed meager. Yet he persevered with prayer, mercy to the poor, and quiet courage. He reminds us that evangelization is often a long fidelity through apparent failure, trusting that Christ’s hidden work outlasts our visible results.

Both saints teach what the Gospel shows: Christ heals with words and touch, and he sends us to carry that healing across borders of fear, fatigue, and indifference.

Living the Word This Week

• Pray Psalm 86 in short breaths throughout the day: “Listen, Lord, and answer me… You are good and forgiving.” Let lament become trust.
• Move from crowding to contact: name one place you have been “pressing” around Jesus without really touching him. Bring that wound to him in honest prayer or in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
• Make room for resurrection: fast from ridicule and cynical speech. Escort mockery to the door so hope can breathe.
• Feed the newly raised: bring a meal, offer childcare, sit in silence; practical love for someone emerging from illness, grief, or burnout.
• Ask the saints’ help: through Saint Blaise, offer your voice to God for blessing; through Saint Ansgar, ask perseverance in any mission that currently feels thankless.

Jesus meets David’s tears with the Father’s mercy, the woman’s shame with a daughter’s dignity, and a father’s dread with a hand that lifts a child to her feet. He still does. Between our deepest losses and our loudest crowds, he is near enough to touch and strong enough to speak life. Do not be afraid; only believe. And then, with him, help set the table.