Tuesday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 17, 2024

Luke 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.

In the First Reading for today’s Mass, from 1 Corinthians 11, 17-26; 33, St. Paul elaborates on the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ which the Lord Jesus revealed to the world in such passages as John 15, 5-7, in speaking of himself as the vine and those who belong to him as the branches of the vine.  Now, many people read or hear such verses and think of them as figures similar to the Lord’s parables.  In fact, the Lord (and St. Paul) are speaking quite literally, only we are not to understand what they mean by our understanding of a vine or of a body, but as they do.  Earthly vines only share in certain ways with the heavenly Vine, the Body of the Lord.  It is the heavenly Vine which is preeminent, somewhat in the way that an original painting is preeminent over the many copies made of it.  That is to say, when we look at an earthly vine, or an ordinary human body, they should see them as shadows of the real thing.  Baptized believers in Christ truly are members of one another in a way that is only hinted at in the image of an earthly vine or human body.  Instead of sap or blood, grace surges among us, from God directly into the believer, and from each believer into another.

In today’s Gospel Reading, St. Luke tells us of the Lord’s visit to the town of Naim.  He is the only one of the Evangelists to tell us of his visit to this town.  He does not tell us what he said and did within the town’s walls, but he does tell us what happened as he approached them, and this helps us to understand the life of grace which we believers share.  “He stepped forward and touched the coffin.”  The Lord does not fear death, or that by touching the coffin he is contaminated by it.  Rather, he is stronger than death, for one day he will cast death into a “pool of fire” (Revelation 20, 14).  In touching the dead young man, the Lord dismissed death: “The dead man sat up and began to speak.”  The restoration of life happens immediately and very naturally without any fanfares.  If the bystanders had blinked, they would have missed it.  And when Luke adds that as soon as the young man sat up “he began to speak”, we see that there is no recuperation, no need for time to recover either from his former illness or from the experience of death.  And so it is when we receive grace in the sacraments.  Its effect is immediate.  We are forgiven.  We are given new life.  And this grace affects not just those who receive it directly through the sacraments, but also all those joined to the believer in the Body of Christ.  Every conversion strengthens each of us.  Every reception of Holy Communion, wherever it takes place, makes us, each and all, stronger.  

God in his mercy has so constituted us as members of the Body of his Son so that when he looks upon us he may see him. We pray that through his grace we may successfully strive to imitate his virtues and, above all, his love, so that we we may conform ourselves to him ever more every day.