DAILY MEDITATION: “Young man, I tell you, arise!”

Liturgical day: Tuesday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel text (Lk 7,11-17): Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her and said to her, "Do not weep." He stepped forward and touched the coffin; at this the bearers halted, and he said, "Young man, I tell you, arise!" The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, exclaiming, "A great prophet has arisen in our midst," and "God has visited his people." This report about him spread through the whole of Judea and in all the surrounding region.

“Young man, I tell you, arise!”

Fr. Joan SERRA i Fontanet
(Barcelona, Spain)

Today, two groups of people cross each other's path… One group escorting death; the other one escorting life. A poor widow, followed by her relatives and friends, is carrying out her only son to the cemetery while, suddenly, she sees a lot of people following Jesus. The two groups of people get together and they come to a halt, while Jesus tells the mother who was going to lay her son to rest: “Do not weep” (Lk 7, 13). The crowd looked at Jesus, who was not indifferent to that mother's pain and suffering, but feeling deeply sorry for her, He brings her son back to life. For, finding Jesus is to find life, as Jesus said about Himself: “I am the resurrection and the life” (Jn 11, 25). St. Braulio of Saragossa writes: “Let the hope of resurrection encourage us, then, because we shall see again those whom we lose here below.”

In reading this fragment of the Gospel about the resurrection of that young man of Naim, we could emphasize Jesus' divinity and stand fast on it, by saying that only God could have brought back life to this young man; but, today, I would rather stress Jesus’ Humanity as, here, we do not see Jesus as a remote being, or as someone very different from us, or even somebody so important that He could not arouse in us the confidence and trust a good friend would.

We, Christians, must learn to emulate Jesus. We must ask God for the grace to be like Christ for others. How wonderful if others could see us as Jesus' very image on this earth! Those who saw St. Francis of Assisi, for instance, were also seeing Jesus' image. Saints are those who carry Jesus in their words and deeds, and imitate His way of doing things and his goodness. Our society needs saints and you can be one in your environment.

Source: evangeli.net