Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Tell the story of the Popes meeting Jesus and talk about theology.

Let me ask you a question: Can we human beings fully understand who God is and what he does? If someone tells you that “I know everything about God,” then please tell him that “that is not our God.”None of us understand everything about God. Even the Pope or Fr. Burk. If we do, he is not our God. We do not fully know who God is or what he does, which is why we question him a lot.

After reflecting on the three readings today, I asked myself many questions, like why God, “who was rich, became poor for our sake so that by his poverty, we might become rich,” why God, who “formed us to be imperishable, and why he made us in his own image and likeness,as the first reading shows us, and why He loves us to the point of death.

The hard part for us is that we do not FULLY know why God does what he does.

And I think until we see God face to face, none of us fully understand who God is.

But, the good news is that we do not need to understand everything about God. What we need to know is that God truly understands us well; and he knows what is best for us. Jesus, the Son of God, especially, truly understands us fully because he was fully human. St. Mark always emphasizes the humanity of Jesus.

In today's Gospel, Mark shows that Jesus acted as a human being. He gently looked at the woman and said: "Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction." Next, Jesus “took the child by the hand and said to her, "Little girl, I say to you, arise!"

That is our Jesus, who always understands us well because he lived and acted like humans. He knows our human hearts better than we do. That is our Jesus, who always touches us with his loving human heart.

Jesus always acts through His humanity, even now. His humanity is the ministers of the Church, especially the sacraments.

One of the most significant sacraments I love most is the sacrament of reconciliation or confession. Through this sacrament, I come to have a better understanding of Jesus’s merciful heart and his love. The story of the afflicted woman in the Gospel can resemble the sacrament of reconciliation. The woman knew that she was not well, and she needed Jesus to heal her. She decided to touch Jesus, and she was healed. And this happens at the confession, too. When we have sinned, we need to be healed too. Then we go to confession to be touched by Jesus through his minister and healed by Jesus’ forgiveness.

The amazing thing about the afflicted woman is her faith and her willingness to be healed. Jewish perspective of ritually unclean….

She believed, "If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured." She was willing to be healed. My question is, are we willing to be healed by Jesus? Are we willing to be healed from our sins and the occasions of our sins? Are we willing to be touched by Jesus’s loving and merciful heart?

If we are willing to be cured by Jesus, we need to touch Jesus so that he may heal us. And in the sacrament, Jesus touches us through his loving forgiveness. He tells us through his minister, “Go in peace; your sins have been forgiven.” These are almost the same words Jesus said to the woman: "Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.” Be not afraid of going to confession. It is a beautiful sacrament that Jesus has instituted to show his love and mercy. I always joke with my friends that I hate to go to confession, but I love leaving the confessional room because I always feel relieved and forgiven.

Please remember that through the ministry of the Church, Jesus always touches us with his loving mercy and the human heart. It is the same Jesus who cured the afflicted woman and raised the dead child. It is the same Jesus who died two 2000 years ago on the Cross, touching each of us in the sacraments of the Church. The same Christ who tells the child's parents, “Give her something to eat,” will be at this Altar in a few minutes. That something to eat is the Body and Blood of Christ, the same Jesus sitting at Father's right hand in heaven.

Brothers and sisters, we will never fully understand who God is and what he does. However, we may know that Jesus always understands us fully and touches us with love and mercy because he has a human heart like ours. That is truly our Lord Jesus Christ.

May God bless us all.