Sermon 63B
Sermon 63/B
OF THE DAUGHTER OF THE CHIEF SYNAGOGUE
AND ABOUT THE WOMAN SUFFERING A FLOW OF BLOOD
Christ is touched by faith.
Both the mind is enlightened, and hope of future things is added, while the deeds of the past are narrated. Jesus was going to raise the daughter of the synagogue ruler, who had already been reported dead; and while he was going, as if by a side path, a woman afflicted with disease intervened, full of faith, bleeding, to be redeemed by blood. And she said in her heart: If I only touch the hem of his garment, I will be saved. When she said it, she touched: Christ is touched by faith. She approached and touched, it happened as she believed. But the Lord asked, saying: Who touched me? He who knows everything wants to know; he asks by whom it was done, which before it was done, he himself knew. Therefore, it is a mystery: let us look at it, and as much as is granted, let us understand.
What the daughter of the synagogue leader and the woman with a hemorrhage signify.
The daughter of the synagogue leader signifies the people of the Jews; but this woman signifies the church of the Gentiles. The Lord Christ, born of the Jews in the flesh, was presented in the flesh to the same Jews; he sent to the Gentiles, he did not go himself. His bodily and visible sojourn was made in Judea. Hence the Apostle says: For I say that Christ was a servant of the circumcision on behalf of God's truth to confirm the promises made to the fathers (for it was said to Abraham: In your seed shall all the nations be blessed); but the Gentiles glorify God for his mercy. Therefore, Christ was sent to the Jews. He was going to raise the daughter of the synagogue leader. The woman intervenes and is healed; first she is healed by faith and is almost ignored by the Savior. For whence is it said: Who touched me? The ignorance of God, the confidence of the mystery; he wishes to signify something, when he who cannot be ignorant is ignorant. What then does it signify? Healing the church of the Gentiles, which Christ did not see in bodily presence, whose voice is in the psalm: A people I did not know served me, in the hearing of the ear they obeyed me. The world heard and believed; the Jewish people saw and first crucified, but afterwards even they approached. The Jews also believe, but at the end of the age.
The garment of Christ is the choir of the Apostles, the hem is Paul.
Meanwhile, let this woman be saved; let her touch the hem of the garment. Understand the garment as the choir of the Apostles. There was one certain last and least, a certain hem, the Apostle Paul. He himself was sent to the Gentiles, who says: For I am the least of the Apostles, who am not fit to be called an Apostle. Again he says: I am the last of the Apostles. This last and least hem is necessary for the woman who is not well to be healed. What we have heard has happened, what we have heard happens: every day this woman touches the hem, every day she is made well. For the flux of the flesh is indeed the flux of blood. When the Apostle is heard, when that last and least hem is heard, and says: Mortify your members which are upon the earth, the flux of blood is restrained, fornication is restrained, drunkenness is restrained, worldly delights are restrained, all works of the flesh are restrained. Do not be amazed: the hem has been touched. When the Lord said: Who touched me? knowing, yet he did not know: he signified and designated the Church, which he did not see in the body, but redeemed with his blood.