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10th Sunday of the Year – June 5, 2016

I Kgs 17:17-24; Gal 1:11-19; Lk 7: 11-17A prominent businessman was walking down the street of a large city on his way home from a meeting. It was night. Since his meeting had lasted later than it should, it was long after it was safe to be on the streets alone. By this time, there were all kinds of derelicts and people of questionable reputation on the streets. As he was walking by, the businessman happened to look down and see a man all curled up in the gutter trying to stay warm. The cool night air was progressively getting chillier and chillier. Something about this man made the businessman take another look at him, and then another. Finally, he walked over to get a good look. When he saw the man, and the look in his eyes, the businessman instinctively did what Jesus did with the widow who had lost her only son that day in the town of Nain. The businessman's heart went out to the man in the gutter. He bent down to him and said, "Whoever you are, you don't belong h...

I Kgs 17:17-24; Gal 1:11-19; Lk 7: 11-17

A prominent businessman was walking down the street of a large city on his way home from a meeting. It was night. Since his meeting had lasted later than it should, it was long after it was safe to be on the streets alone. By this time, there were all kinds of derelicts and people of questionable reputation on the streets. As he was walking by, the businessman happened to look down and see a man all curled up in the gutter trying to stay warm. The cool night air was progressively getting chillier and chillier. Something about this man made the businessman take another look at him, and then another. Finally, he walked over to get a good look. When he saw the man, and the look in his eyes, the businessman instinctively did what Jesus did with the widow who had lost her only son that day in the town of Nain. The businessman's heart went out to the man in the gutter. He bent down to him and said, "Whoever you are, you don't belong here!" The businessman took the man home with him to see if he could help him. As it turned out, the businessman was right. This man didn't belong there. He was a prominent physician who had taken to drink and had all but ruined his career. Just as Jesus had seen that the young man did not belong on the funeral bier, so the businessman saw that this man, whoever he was, didn't belong in the gutter. This story also has a happy ending. The businessman saw to it that the man got into a rehabilitation program and turned his life around. All because of that little word "compassion." Compassion can do more than you may think, especially if it's straight from the heart of Jesus.

Introduction:  The central theme of today’s readings is that, in a world of broken hearts, God sees and cares for us in our grief. He shows compassion on our miseries and gives us His healing touch. Today’s Scripture readings challenge us to become channels of God’s compassionate, healing love and to place our hope in Jesus who gives us resurrection and eternal life. The first reading, taken from I Kings 17, shows us how our merciful God uses His prophet Elijah to resuscitate the only the son of the poor widow of Zarephath who had given the prophet accommodation in her house during a famine. In the second reading, taken from the letter to the Galatians, St. Paul declares that the Good News of God’s love, mercy and salvation which he preaches has been directly revealed to him by God, Who had chosen him for ministry from his mother’s womb Today’s Gospel story reveals to us the compassionate heart of God in Jesus.  Meeting a funeral procession coming out of the village of Nain, Jesus was visibly moved at the sight of the weeping widow going with the town to bury her only son. Perhaps he could foresee his own mother in the same position at the foot of his cross. In addition, Jesus knew that the widows were one of the most destitute, dependent, and vulnerable classes of society, totally dependent for support on the mercy of others. So Jesus stopped the funeral procession, touched the bier, consoled the mother and surprised everyone by resuscitating the boy, thus extending God’s love and compassion to the bereaved mother.

The first reading:  In the story from I Kings, the prophet Elijah is a lodger in the upper room of the house of a widow during the great famine. This widow had been very kind to Elijah. But tragically her only son became very ill and stopped breathing. In utter desperation and anger the poor widow struck out at Elijah, as if somehow this were his fault.   Grief often gives rise to misplaced anger, and hurting people hurt other people.  This woman was hurting, and so she struck out at Elijah. Elijah realized that it was his turn to help her in her tragedy. He took the boy from her arms, carried him to his own bedroom, and laid him on the bed. Then Elijah cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!” And the writer of I Kings tells us, “The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!”

The second reading: In Galatia, Paul encountered conflicts caused by hostile elements, people whose misguided efforts threatened to stifle the Church’s growth among the Gentiles. St. Paul had to clarify both his authority to preach and the source of his teaching to his opponents. Here in his letter to the Galatians, he declares that the Good News of God’s love, mercy and salvation which he has been preaching have been directly revealed to him by God who chose him for this ministry from his mother’s womb.

Exegesis: The context: Today's Gospel presents one of the three accounts in the Gospel of Jesus’ raising of a dead person to life. The other stories are those of Lazarus and of Jairus, the synagogue leader’s daughter. Today's story is found only in Luke. Nain is a village six miles SE of Nazareth, and it is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible.

A great, irreparable loss ruining the life a widow: Widows formed one of the most destitute, dependent, and vulnerable classes of society in Jesus’ time. Unlike our society in which the modern woman has the freedom to work and to care for herself, the woman could not provide for herself. As a result, the worst thing that could happen to a woman was for her to lose her husband. Then she was left in the most vulnerable and destitute of conditions. As a result, the Old Covenant law protected widows and made provision for them. For example, in Deuteronomy 24, there are regulations that prevent the Israelites from harvesting their fields more than once. Why? So that whatever remained of the harvest after the first pass would then be given to the destitute of society, which included the widows. The first harvest was for the land-owner. The remaining harvest was given to the poor. Even then, the widow was left completely dependent upon the graciousness of the landowners and their obedience to the Mosaic Law.

The Scriptures make clear that God takes no pleasure in the death of anyone (see Ezekiel 33:11); God desires life, not death. The story of Naomi in the book of Ruth reminds us of what happens when sons die. After losing both her husband and her two sons, Naomi laments, "Call me no longer Naomi (that is, pleasant), call me Mara (that is, bitter)." In the story of the widow of Zarephath (I Kings 17:8-16), the widow announces, "Just now, I was collecting a couple of sticks, to go in and prepare something for myself and my son; when we have eaten it, we shall die" (1 Kings 17: 12), the famine having made even the meager existence they had had impossible. Widows and orphans were a particular concern of the prophets. Jesus stands in that prophetic tradition. The scene at Nain is particularly sad because the mother in this story, who had already lost her husband, has now lost her only son and her only means of support. Jesus was visibly moved by the sight of the weeping widow, perhaps because he could foresee his own mother in the same position at the foot of his cross. His compassionate heart prompted him to console the widow saying: "Do not weep." Then Luke reports, “He touched the bier and when the bearers stood still, he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’ And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother,” and participated in her indescribable joy.

Revelation of Jesus’ Divinity and humanity: Jesus’ physical touch not only restored life but brought freedom and wholeness to soul as well as body. Christ comes to restore what was lost. He, in fact, acts to remove the cause of pain and sorrow, “for I, the LORD, am your Healer” (Exodus 15:26).  In reading this fragment of the Gospel about the resuscitation of that young man of Nain, we could emphasize Jesus' Divinity alone by saying that only God could have brought back his life to this young man. But here we see Jesus’ humanity as well. We don’t see Jesus in the Gospel episode as a remote Divine Being, but as somebody close to us, sharing our loss and sorrow. Jesus’ raising of the widow’s son was also a sign of the spiritual resurrection offered to all people. Jesus is showing concern about the need for us to be spiritually alive here and now.

The reaction of the people around was one of awe and admiration. "A great prophet has risen among us and God has visited his people." They had no doubts about the origin of what they had seen taking place; it was the work of God. Not surprisingly, the story spread like wildfire all through Judea and beyond.

Old Testament parallel cases: There were instances in the Old Testament of people being raised from death: by Elijah (1 Kings 17:17-24), and Elisha (2 Kings 4:32-37). This miracle of Jesus took place near the spot where the prophet Elisha had brought another mother's son back to life again (see 2 Kings 4:18-37). These miracles were signs of the power of God working through His prophets.  In the case of the widow’s son in today’s Gospel, the miracle showed the people that Jesus, like Elijah and Elisha, was, at the least, a great prophet.

Life messages: 1) We need to become channels of God’s compassionate and healing love as Jesus was: The event also reminds us to have the same love and compassion for those who suffer that Jesus had. Our deeds of love will transform the broken-hearted and help them to experience God as the Father who has come among His people. We must ask God for the grace to be like Christ for the others in our daily lives. Those who saw St. Francis of Assisi, for instance, were also seeing Jesus in him. Saints are those who carry Jesus in their words and deeds, imitating his way of doing things and his goodness. Our society need saints, and we can each be one in our own environment. Those who hurt also need comfort, and again, it is our responsibility to offer that comfort. As our Lord comforted this woman, let us comfort others (Galatians 6:2, Romans 12:15).

2) We need to be spiritually alive: This story should help us to look at our own situation and see, first of all, how alive we really are. When we live in mortal sin we are physically alive and spiritually dead. We need the spiritual revival offered to us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. St. Augustine comments,   "Our Mother, the Church, rejoices every day when people are raised again in spirit sacramentally.”  

3) We need to offer our broken hearts to Jesus: We need to bring our deepest hurts and broken relationships to Jesus and experience how he reaches out to us to grant us his loving reconciliation. Let us invite Jesus to transform the most difficult situations in our life. The Lord Jesus still raises the dead.  We trust that promise each time we bring our shattered lives, our broken hearts, our anger, our depression, our deepest hurts to the table of the Lord and hear, in the voice of the priest, His sure and certain words: "This is my Body and this is my Blood given and shed for you!"

A couple of years ago the New York Daily News carried a story about a television news anchorwoman named Pat Harper who left her luxurious East Side apartment with 80 cents in her pocket and spent five days living on the street "to learn what it's like to be homeless." Harper spent the days wandering the streets in the icy January rain and her nights sleeping in doorways, train stations and public shelters. She began to realize that most of the homeless people were not much different from her. Several people helped, giving her food and advice on how to survive without money. The undercover investigation made her realize that many homeless are simply normal people who have been hit with financial problems from which they have not been able to rebound. There was no other way for this successful media person to know how they felt other than to walk where the homeless walk. There is another who left comfort and convenience to walk where the outcasts walk. He was the same man who had compassion on the widow of Nain. That is essentially the message of the cross. He has walked where we walk. When it is time for us also to walk the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering, he walks with us. That has always been the hope of people whose dreams have been dashed, whose burdens have seemed unbearable.

(Source: Homilies of Fr. Anthony Kadavil)

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