by Mark Escobar

Created on: January 04, 2010

Readings:  Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24; Ps 30:2, 4-6, 11-13; 2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15; Mk 5:21-43

The story of Jairus’ daughter and the woman with hemorrhage – a healing miracle[1]

“Daughter, it is your faith that has healed you.  Go home in peace, and be free from your trouble . . . And taking only the father and mother and his own companions with him, went into the room where the child was.  Then he took the little girl’s hand and said to her in Aramaic, “Little girl I tell you to get up.”

I think there is nothing unusual about a doctor who treats and provides medical assistance to his patients.  Unless we talk about something beyond his medical or scientific studies that need special interpretation as far as God’s miracles or supernatural interventions are concerned.  Lately, we have heard Pres Barack Obama speaking at the meeting of the American Medical Association with these words:  “You didn’t enter this profession to become bean counters and paper pushers.  You entered this profession to be healers.  And that’s what our health care system should let you be.”[2]  In other words, doctors in various fields of specializations need to reform their culture of business in tune with their calling.

            In today’s gospel we find Jesus healing the woman with hemorrhage and Jairus’ daughter who was ill and almost on the brink of death.[3]  Both of them were in urgent need to be healed.  There was no time to lose and Jesus made an effort despite his busy schedule to minister to these people.  One was a woman, a social outcast, who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years and the other one was a daughter of Jairus,[4] who was a synagogue leader, well respected and likely quite well-off. 

            It was their gift of faith in Jesus; the key issue in the gospel that healed them.  The Letter to the Hebrews (11:1) tells us that: “faith is evidence of things not seen.”  They were cured and restored to life.  Following in the tradition of the great Jewish prophets, Elijah (1 Kings 17:19-23), for instance, Jesus equates faith with healing.  When the woman touched his cloak, Jesus wanted her to go public with her faith that had led her healing.  She approached Jesus in fear because her

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