Vigils Reading – 13th Sunday

THE DEAD WILL RISE

From a commentary by St Peter Chrysologus1

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Every gospel reading, beloved, is most helpful for our present life and for

the attainment of the life to come. Today’s reading, however, sums up the whole

of our hope, banishing all grounds for despair.

Let us consider the synagogue official who took Christ to his daughter and

in so doing gave the woman with a hemorrhage an opportunity to approach him.

Here is the beginning of today’s reading: An official came to Jesus and did

homage, saying: Lord, my little daughter has just died, but come and lay your

hands on her and she will live.

Christ could foresee the future and he knew that this woman would

approach him. Through her the Jewish official was to learn that there is no need

to move God to another place, take him on a journey, or attract him by a physical

presence. One must only believe that he is present in the whole of his being

always and everywhere, and that he can do all things effortlessly by a single

command; that far from depriving us of strength, he gives it; that he puts death

to flight by a word of command rather than by physical touch, and gives life by

his mere bidding, without need of any art.

My daughter has just died. Do come. What he means is that the warmth

of life still remains, there are still indications that her soul has not departed, her

spirit is still in this world, the head of the house still has a daughter, the

underworld is still unaware of her death. Come quickly and hold back the

departing soul!

In his ignorance the man assumed that Christ would not be able to raise

his daughter unless he actually laid his hand on her. So when Christ reached the

house and saw the mourners lamenting as though the girl were dead, he

declared that she was not dead but sleeping. In order to move their unbelieving

minds to faith and convince them that one can rise from death more easily than

from sleep. The girl is not dead, he told them, but asleep.

And indeed for God death is nothing but sleep. He can restore life-giving

warmth to limbs grown cold in death sooner than we can impart vigor to bodies

sunk in slumber. Listen to the apostle: In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye,

the dead will rise. He used an image because it is impossible to express the

speed of the resurrection in words. How could he explain its swiftness verbally

when divine power outstrips the very notion of swiftness? How could time enter

the picture when an eternal gift is given outside of time? Time implies duration,

but eternity excludes time.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1993 – pg 94.3