SUNDAY, THIRTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
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
IMITATING GOD’S GENEROSITY
God has revealed His love towards humanity, by being generous to us! He created us as an extension of His love, allowed us to share in the beauty of His Divine life, and when we sinned, He promised a Saviour, to redeem us from the claws of sin and death. Before He banished Adam and Eve from Paradise, He took care of them and clothed them. That was indeed a manifestation of God’s merciful generosity.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). This verse itself can singularly be taken as proof for God’s generosity. God did not merely send us a prophet or an angel, but His own Son to direct us to Him. God has made attaining of salvation and heaven, easy for people, just like the serpent’s image which Moses created in the Old Testament.
A mere look upon the image of the fiery serpent would save them from dying. God has sent His Son so that by believing in Him and doing what He has commanded, we would be restored to Heaven – the paradise which we had lost due to the ‘Fall’ of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But the problem with humanity is that though we have received grace, blessings and healing from God, we, as a race, have been rather miserly in responding to God. We have chosen to disregard and treat with indifference, the One who was sent by God; we chose to crucify our ticket to heaven. We have thus waived off the immense generosity that was shown to us – the mercy of God.
The readings of today teach us profoundly on God’s generosity. In the Gospel, we see Jesus being generous when Jairus comes to Him. Even when He hears from His servant that his daughter is dead, Jesus goes on ahead, to heal the child and to revive the child back to life. Similar behaviour is evident also in the event where Jesus heals the woman. But we must carefully note that these two miracles happen at the physical level. In comparison to this, and in a superordinate manner, we have God revealing his generosity at the spiritual or metaphysical level in the first reading. God does not want us to die. For He has created us in His own image for a specific purpose. The Book of Wisdom would teach us that man is made for immortality and incorruption. This very verse implies that we are meant to live with God. This is the very same lesson that the Church’s Catechism teaches us as a response to the question: Why did God create you?: “To know Him, to love Him, to serve Him and to be with Him.”
Saint Paul, writing to Corinthians exhorts the church to excel in grace. From one point of view, the reading has an undertone that God has been generous with His grace because of his infinite and unconditional love for humanity. “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Rom 5:20). Drawing from God’s generosity shown to us, Paul instructs us to be generous with one another with the use of our money, time and energy. Does Paul’s exhortation ring a bell in our ears and sound personal to us? In the current world scenario, people are rather generous with money, but they have time not to spare, nor attention, and no listening ear to be shown or shared with their friends and family. People go to the extent of paying a therapist to listen to them pour themselves out.
Amid the busyness of our lives, we have been ignorant to the voices of many. This includes our own family members, co-workers, and members of society. These might have merely expected a kind gesture from us: a compassionate word, an affectionate smile, a listening ear. The liturgy of the day compels us to introspect our lives.
Can I be generous in my family? Can I be a beacon of hope and generosity at my place of work? these are the questions that the readings of today pose before us! If I am to keep aside my scruples and generously relate with the people in my life, maybe, I too can share, to a certain extent, in the generosity of God. Probably the people in my life are longing for the same.
Response: I will extol you, O Lord, for you have raised me up.
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