Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you

8 JULY (Mt 9,18-26)

How the Holy Spirit governs the faith in the hearts of men is a real mystery. However, one thing is sure, certain: every man has a very personal, unique, peculiar way to live his faith, whether it be perfect, imperfect and barely sketched. Life according to the faith is therefore not the work of the mere person, it is the work together of the person and of the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit within the person faith is dead, missing its heart, its blood, its light and its truth.

Jairus is a chiefs of the Jews. His daughter has just died. Jesus comes and asks the resurrection for her. You come, lay your hands on her and she will live. This is the faith of Jairus. He believes that Jesus can give life to a dead body. He can make the soul in his daughter come back. The Holy Spirit is the one to put this faith in his heart. Of course Jairus had heard of Jesus. He saw him as an all-powerful person. He also had knowledge of the Scriptures. He knew that Elijah and Elisha, true prophets of the living God, had raised some children. The application of historical, scriptural truth to the specific case and the transformation of history and Scripture into faith takes place only through the work of the Holy Spirit. He alone is the Creator of the faith in a heart. Sure, he serves himself of history and the Scripture, but these are not the way of faith.

The Holy Spirit is the Author, the Transformer, the Illuminator, the Creator, the Verifier, the Updater, the Stimulator of the true faith in every heart. It is he who must always be invoked so that he carries out his work without interruption in all hearts. Without Him never will any heart open to faith. The germ of life is lacking in it. A heart without the Holy Spirit is in all similar to an unfertilized egg. It can also stay months and months under the hen, but never the new life will come out of it. It lacks the germ of life. Who wants to work so that the faith springs out and is formed, matures and reaches its perfection in a heart, must be full of the Holy Spirit.

While he was saying these things to them, an official came forward, knelt down before him, and said, “My daughter has just died. But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus rose and followed him, and so did his disciples. A woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the tassel on his cloak. She said to herself, “If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured.” Jesus turned around and saw her, and said, “Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you.” And from that hour the woman was cured. When Jesus arrived at the official’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd who were making a commotion, he said, “Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they ridiculed him. When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand, and the little girl arose. And news of this spread throughout all that land.

The woman who has been bleeding for twelve years and to whose disease there is no human remedy, she also lives with Jesus and toward Him a most personal faith, this also fruit of the Holy Spirit in her heart. This woman lives a hidden, invisible and silent faith. However, if the obscurity of faith before the miracle is just, it is not after the miracle for reasons of gratitude, thanksgiving and praise for the one who did the miracle. The woman is obliged to live the demands of faith. For its every fruit one must thank and bless the Lord out loud.

The flute players along with the crowd in agitation mock Jesus They live a relationship of non faith. They do not know Jesus. They think he is a person that does not know how to distinguish a person that died from one who is still alive. The flutists in particular were experts in the way of death. They were like vultures. Where there was a dead body to bury, they were always present. They are experts of death, but not of life. Jesus is an expert in life, because He is Lord of all life. He gives life, creating it, making it return even into a body that is deprived of it. They do not possess this knowledge of Jesus. Even mockery is part of the process of faith, as long as it remains before the miracle. If it continues after the miracle, then it is no longer a matter of the movement towards faith, but of guilty disbelief.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us be filled with the Holy Spirit.