3 February 2026 – Tuesday of the 4th week of Ordinary Time
2 Samuel 18:9-10, 14b, 24-25a, 30 – 19:4; Mark 5:21-43
HOMILY
This Gospel story is very well constructed. Almost every detail is charged with symbolic meaning, and we will certainly not grasp the full message if we simply read it as a beautiful ‘story.’ The story is only there to support the message, and that message concerns life, its restoration and its maintenance.
It is no accident that we have two stories in one here; and there is no serious reason to think that the two events happened at the same time and on the same day. The two stories are brought together because they have much in common and convey the same message.
In each case, it is question of a woman. Obviously, women have a very special relationship with life. They give life to their children after caring for this new life in their wombs for nine months, and they continue to care for them long after birth. In Semitic culture, giving life was the highest honor for a woman as well as her most important duty. And, of course, every Jewish woman nurtured the secret hope of being the mother of the Messiah herself.
The two women in our Gospel have in common the fact that they are deprived of the opportunity to fulfil this duty and receive this honor - the first, because of her death at the age of twelve - the age of legal puberty, and the age at which Jewish girls were usually given in marriage (she was therefore not a ‘child’, but a young woman of marriageable age); the second, because of her type of infirmity (from which she had suffered for twelve years—the number is noteworthy), which made her unclean according to the Law, thus excluding her from any contact with men and depriving her of the possibility of becoming a mother.
Jesus restores both of them to the fullness of life, to their full femininity, and thus restores them to their role as potential givers of life. By healing them, Jesus reveals himself as the one who gives life. The oldest title of Christ in the Syriac Church was ‘the one who gives life’. When Jesus, at the end of the story, commands that the young woman be given food, he also reveals himself as the one who nourishes life. He is the one who gives and restores not only ‘spiritual’ life, but ‘human’ life, a life that is physical, psychological and spiritual.
In doing so, Jesus reminds us of the beauty and value of life—of all forms of life: the beautiful, charming and fragile life of a healthy child as well as that of an elderly and sick person. Jesus cares about all forms of life, in all situations: he cares about the life of the human embryo that is violently terminated, but also about the lives of children who are born but cannot develop normally due to lack of food, shelter, education, work or other normal opportunities. He cares about the lives of people taken hostage, as well as those of entire nations held hostage by political and economic calculations, and all victims of terrorism. He also cares about the lives of people who are well fed and lack no material goods but who will never reach full maturity due to a lack of love, understanding, compassion and forgiveness.
In today's Gospel, Jesus is revealed to us as the one who gives and nourishes life, all forms of life. All of us, young or old, married or single, men or women, are called, following the example of Christ and each in our own way, to give life, to nourish it and, when necessary, to restore it.
And it is because we believe in this mission received from Christ, in whom we share the same faith, that we want, once again. this morning, to receive the Bread of Life together.
Armand VEILLEUX