Anonymous, The Bleeding Woman touching the hem of Christ’s Garment, (1475), Harvard Art Museums
Today’s readings deal with topics we Americans, and perhaps people everywhere, would rather avoid. The readings deal with sickness and death. We do our best to avoid sickness and death. That’s reasonable. But there is much in us that is afraid of sickness and death. We do our best to avoid talking about them. That is not reasonable. That’s a denial of reality. We have such a hard time with these topics that we have created stories tone down the reality. So, when a baby dies or a child, we say, “God must have wanted another angel with Him in heaven. This is not true. God doesn’t go around killing babies and little children because his angel inventory is low. And besides, the whole concept of people becoming angels after they die is a complete fabrication. Angels are different beings than human beings, including dead human beings. Human beings do not become angels and angels do not become human beings.
Let’s face it, most of us cannot understand the very fact of death, so we put it all on God’s shoulders. “It’s God’s will,” we say when a person dies. No it isn’t. To say that it is God’s will is to say that God does evil things. If God is All Good, and He is, how can He do evil things? So how can we arrive at some understanding of the existence of sickness and death? How can we understand why that poor lady in the Gospel was suffering for years from hemorrhages, or why Jairus’ daughter should die? How can we understand why good people that you know and that I know have become terribly sick or have died? Perhaps we can’t answer these questions, but we certainly are wrong when we pass the blame off to God.
The author of the first reading, from the Book of Wisdom is not afraid to tell the truth. Our readings began today with his telling us, “God did not make death. Nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living.” He made everything wholesome and good. He formed man to be imperishable, made in the image of His own nature. But through the envy of the devil, death entered into the world. This is something else we don’t want to hear. Sickness and death are the result of sin. Most often this is not the result of the sins of the person who gets sick or dies, but it is due to the consequences of sin in the world. Now, it is tempting to just blame Adam and Eve, but that takes us out of the picture. We are not all that innocent. Look, would there be wars if pride and avarice and other sins did not exist? No, there would be no reason for war. So we blame Adam and Eve. Or worse, we blame God. God did not create evil. So, is there hope for this world? Yes, there is hope. There is hope because Christ is in this world. We learned today how He healed that lady and how He raised up that child. We know that He alone has power over sickness and death. We are convinced that there are many who have returned to health due to the direct intervention of the Lord of Life. And we also know, that those who believe in Him with their lives but who do not return to health, those who do die, in fact remain alive with Him. We believe in the gift of Christ’s resurrection. He gave His Life to those who accept Him, not just with words but with their lives. We believe in Baptism, for at Baptism we received the spiritual life of the Trinity. We hold on to Jesus Christ with all our might, because He alone makes sense of the confused reality of life.
So, we entrust our dead to the Lord seeking His mercy and compassion, asking Him to reward them for the goodness of their lives and forgive them for their participation in sin. And we ask the Lord to help us transform the world from its slavery to sin by giving us the courage to fight sin in our own lives. “God did not make death,” the reading proclaims. He made life, eternal life. And we, the baptized, have been given the gift of this life • AE
St. Dominic Catholic Church • Weekend Schedule
Saturday, June 29, 2024
3.00 p.m. Sacrament of Reconciliation – Fr. Jaime P.
5.00 p.m. Holy Mass – Fr. Jaime P.
Sunday, June 30, 2024
7.30 a.m. Holy Mass – Fr. Jaime P.
10.00 a.m. Holy Mass – Fr. Jaime P.
12.30 p.m. Holy Mass – Fr. Jaime P.
3.00 p.m. Santa Misa – Fr. Jaime P.
XIII Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario (Ciclo B)
El Señor tuvo con las mujeres una actitud tan sorprendente que desconcertó incluso a sus mismos discípulos. En aquella sociedad judía donde el varón daba gracias a Dios cada día por no haber nacido mujer, no era fácil entender a un maestro que acogía sin discriminaciones a hombres y mujeres en la nueva comunidad. Para Jesús hombres y mujeres tienen igual dignidad personal; la mujer no es ni debe ser objeto del dominio del varón. Sin embargo, los cristianos no hemos sido capaces todavía de extraer todas las consecuencias que se siguen de la actitud del Señor. Laurentin decía que se trataba de una revolución ignorada por la Iglesia. Tenia razón. Por lo general, los varones seguimos sospechando de todo movimiento feminista y reaccionamos contra cualquier planteamiento que pueda poner en peligro nuestra situación privilegiada sobre la mujer. Es así. Los creyentes deberíamos tomar conciencia de que el actual dominio de los varones sobre las mujeres no es algo natural, sino una estructura y un comportamiento profundamente viciados por el egoísmo y la imposición injusta de nuestro poder. Aun así ¿Es posible superar este dominio masculino? La revolución urgida por Jesús no se realiza despertando la agresividad mutua, ni promoviendo entre los sexos una guerra que acarrearía nuevos riesgos para nuestra supervivencia humana. Jesús llama más bien a una revolución de las conciencias que nos haga vivir de otra manera las relaciones que nos unen a unos con otros.
Las diferencias ente los sexos, además de su función en el origen de una nueva vida, han de ser encaminadas hacia la cooperación, el apoyo y el crecimiento mutuos. Los varones hemos de escuchar con mucha más lucidez y sinceridad la interpelación de aquel de quien, según el relato evangélico, salió una fuerza para curar a aquella mujer. En 2013, cuatro meses después de ser elegido Papa, en el viaje de regreso desde Brasil, –donde se había celebrado la Jornada mundial de la juventud–, frente a una pregunta a propósito del diaconado femenino y la presencia de la mujer en los dicasterios romanos, el santo Padre Francisco afirmó: “Creo que nosotros no hemos hecho todavía una teología profunda de la mujer en la Iglesia”. Unos días después, en una entrevista con el director de la Civiltá Cattolica, se le preguntó, precisamente, sobre el papel de la mujer en la Iglesia, a lo que respondió: “Es necesario ampliar los espacios para una presencia femenina más incisiva en la Iglesia […] Las mujeres están formulando cuestiones profundas que debemos afrontar. La Iglesia no puede ser ella misma sin la mujer y el papel que ésta desempeña […] En los lugares donde se toman las decisiones importantes es necesario el genio femenino”.
Estas afirmaciones, que se han ido repitiendo a lo largo de su pontificado, permiten reconocer que la mujer constituye un punto importante en su agenda, haciendo hincapié en dos grandes líneas: por un lado, lo que él llama “teología de la mujer en la Iglesia” y, por otro, la ampliación de espacios para una presencia femenina más incisiva, particularmente necesaria en los lugares donde se toman las decisiones importantes. Pues eso • AE
LA MEDITACION DE LA ESPOSA 