FaithND Daily Reflection - February 9, 2015

This post is part of FaithND's daily posts, serving as the Reflection to go with the daily Gospel and saint bio. Visit faith.nd.edu for more info or to subscribe to their blasts. The original post can be found here.

In the Gospel, Jesus gets flocked by people seeking advice, guidance, and cures.

Often, it takes begging and pleading to get to Jesus: The paralytic’s friends have to climb the roof of a house, break through, and lower their friend to Jesus to be healed (Mark 2:12). The centurion has to plead on behalf of his servant before he is healed (Mark 8:5-13). The blind beggar Bartimaeus has to plead with the disciples to get Jesus to stop before having his sight restored (Mark 10:46-52).

Seemingly, everyone is hungry for the love of God and the healing that God brings. In fact, Mark tells us in this Gospel that people in the time of Jesus “begged that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak.” Even the briefest encounter with Christ brings peace, for all who touched his cloak were healed.

Though we can’t stake out the next road Jesus is walking and touch his cloak, the healing of God is no further from us than it was from the people of first century Palestine. For us, healing comes in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, in prayerfully reflecting and investing in our Penitential Rite at Mass, and in making conscientious apologies and offering others authentic forgiveness. We just need to make some effort to reach out, like the people in this Gospel.

Maybe we don’t always make time for Confession. Maybe we enter into the Penitential Rite mechanically. Maybe we take our relationships for granted. But if we can focus ourselves in these moments and reach out in faith, perhaps we can at least graze the cloak of Jesus and find healing—for he is always looking for us, even before we seek him.

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The Gospel passage this reflection reacts to is Mark 6:53-56:

When they had crossed over, Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.

And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.