Monday of Week 4 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Hebrews 11:32-40 | Psalm 30(31):20-24 | Mark 5:1-20
I was about to alight the train yesterday evening, when I heard a spitting noise behind me.
I turned my head, thinking nobody could possibly be inconsiderate enough to spit in a train. To my surprise, there was a young girl sitting there, with a small pool of spit in front of her. (I hadn’t noticed her before, probably because I had been facing outwards when she entered my carriage from an adjoining one.)
As I was exiting, I distinctly heard a female voice go “Ew, disgusting!”
To my shame, I immediately thought “yeah, just like the mouth from which those words came.”
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Dear brothers and sisters, have you formed a mental picture of the above scene?
Have you made one or more moral judgments based on what I’ve said so far?
In particular, did you think I was being too harsh on the woman who pronounced disgust on an unhygienic and illegal act?
Good, because I left out one detail on purpose:
The young girl showed unmistakable signs of Down syndrome.
Have any of your thoughts suddenly changed?
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The possessed man in today’s gospel reminded me of that young girl. Both were deemed “undesirable” by their respective societies, unable to fit in through no fault of their own.
Jesus drove the demons from the man’s mind, enabling him henceforth to lead a normal life, to the great relief of his family.
But modern medicine still has no answer to this girl’s affliction, so she’ll be ostracized till her dying day…along with her mother beside her, probably trying her best not to retaliate with an unkind remark of her own, and enduring the contemptuous stares from fellow passengers.
I think this mother is no less a “hero of faith” than Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets mentioned in today’s reading. I don’t know if she believes in God, but we are reminded regularly by Jesus that:
It is not those who say to me, “Lord, Lord”, who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven. (Matthew 7:21)
I think this woman, in loving her daughter without reservation, and bearing the cross of lifelong caregiving, embodies the will of our Father in heaven.
As do the families of mentally and physically challenged children whom I see every Sunday at church, resolutely standing by their helpless progeny.
Heroes of faith are revealed in action rather than words, and it doesn’t take much to become one.
It just takes an act of will, to love others and not to count the cost.
We just have to break that little habit of counting the cost in everything.
Lord, You gave us Your life, and You gave us Your love. Help us to share our life and love unreservedly with others who are disadvantaged in life and bereft of love, as You would want us to. Amen.