Hemorrhaging Hope, Grasping the Garment
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July 1, 2018“She said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.’ Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.” (Mk 5:29)
In this morning’s homily, our chaplain spoke of a hemorrhage of hope in those whose lives provide them with no meaning. No matter how much we consume in search of happiness, our lifeblood leaks out behind us. Only by grasping the garment – what courage is bound up in this transgressive act! – can we find life. Only by reaching out for truth, goodness, beauty and love at their source in the incarnate Son of God, risking the ridicule of the crowd, will we be healed.
As St Ambrose puts it:
“Christ means everything to us. Each soul ought to go to him, whether sick with bodily sins, or nailed down by some desire of the world, or still imperfect but desiring to advance in prayer… Each must approach him, for all our power is in his hands. If you want your wound cured, he is the physician. If you burn with fever, he is a cool fountain. If you are weighed down by iniquity, he is justice. If you need help, he is power. If you fear death, he is life… How gracious the Lord is; blessed is the man who learns to trust in him. The woman with the issue of blood trusted in him and at once she was healed because of the faith with which she approached. You, too, touch the hem of his garment. But you must approach with faith; with devotion grasp the hem of the Divine Word. You must fall humbly at his feet. And where are the feet of the Word? Where the Body of Christ is. O faith, richer than all treasures, stronger than all power of the body, more health-giving than all medicine. As soon as the woman approached him, she felt his power and received his healing.”
“Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, ‘Who has touched my clothes?’” (Mk 5:30)
Jesus, too, is hemorrhaging. Just as the woman “felt in her body” the moment of healing, Jesus felt power seep out of him. He seeks to know who has touched him with the kind of faith that draws out his healing power. Like the mother pelican, who pierces herself to feed her chicks on her own lifeblood, the Son of God is the pierced one who feeds those he loves from his own body. And his fountain of blood is inexhaustible. All that is needed is the touch of faith, of one who knows her neediness.
As Rainer Rilke puts it:
“But you take pleasure in the faces
of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those
who grip you for survival.”
“She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth.” (Mk 5:33)
Once her flow of blood has ceased, she is able to pour forth the burden of her heart. This is why she sought him out in the crowd. This is why he sought her out in the crowd. Like the paralyzed man whose bodily healing is secondary to the forgiveness of his sins (Mk 2:1-12), and like the man born blind “so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (Jn 9:3), here too it seems that bodily affliction provides a means to spiritual communion. Twelve years of pain have brought her to this moment, but she feels nothing but gratitude for all that has been; now she is deeply known and called “Daughter.”Image: Painting by Daniel Cariola located at the Encounter Chapel at Magdala, Israel.
