Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
She was dead, the synagogue official’s daughter described in Mark 5. Everyone knew it. And perhaps more than a few people wondered why Jesus along the way stopped long enough to interact with the hemorrhage-afflicted woman who touched his cloak and was cured. If only Jesus had stayed on point, had simply ignored the woman’s touch, had remained focused on the gravely ill little girl, perhaps she could have been saved. But now, it was too late.
Except that it wasn’t.
Jesus took her hand, instructed her to rise, and so she did.
Consider the people you know you have all but given up for dead: family members or friends who have fallen away from an active faith life. People who are rude and abrasive and inconsiderate. People who you know are committing sins every single solitary day of their lives and who don’t seem the least bit remorseful for those wrongs. Interactions with these folks tend to end up with even harder feelings on one side or the other, and it’s too late to do anything about it.
Except that it’s not.
Offer a rosary, time with the Blessed Sacrament, or your other prayer time for the day to the person on earth who is the most dead to you. Believe in the possibility of their redemption. Because the Lord believes in them… and in you and your desire to serve Him.
