11 March 2024 John 4:43-54
Jesus healed at a distance only three times in the gospels. All three times it was with people who were strangers to the faith – a Roman centurion (Luke 7:1-10), a Syrophoenician Woman (Mark 7:24-30), and a Royal Official at Capernaum (it is possible that the royal official was a Jew, but because Jesus treated him like the other two, it seems more likely that he was a gentile).
Twice Jesus tested the faith of these gentiles before he would heal their children (the Syrophoenician Woman and the Royal Official). He said to the Syrophoenician woman, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs” (Mark 7:27). He said to the Royal Official, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe” (John 4:48). Both times the gentiles responded with faith, and Jesus healed their loved ones on the spot.
Sometimes Jesus wants us to ask more than once.
It isn’t because Jesus lacks compassion that he does this. It is because we do.
The verb for “compassion” in the New Testament is splagchnon, a term which refers to the entrails of sacrificial animals. Compassion, therefore, is something that we are supposed to feel viscerally, in our “guts” as it were. A sign that we are not very compassionate, therefore, is that we give up too soon. To use another metaphor, compassion reveals what we are willing to “go to the mat” for, a term from wrestling where grapplers won’t let go until someone wins and the other loses.
Jesus wants to know how far we are willing to go, for authentic compassion goes deep into the guts, and all the way to the mat.
It is certainly willing to ask more than once.
In fact, we often don’t know how deep our compassion goes until we have been turned down more than once. It takes being turned down more than once before we can forget about ourselves and think more of the need of the other for whom we intercede.
There are four words for “love” in Latin, and they come in order, from the lowest form to the highest. The highest form of love in Latin is called dilectio, and it refers to “love of the other for the sake of the other, knowing that it is going to cost you something.” The word “compassion” comes from two Latin words, one which means “to suffer” and the other a prefix which intensifies whatever comes next. “Compassion” therefore means readiness to suffer deeply for the sake of the other, and it is an essential part of dilectio. It turns out also that the English word “delight” is derived from dilectio. Love of the other which requires readiness for deep suffering is our highest human joy.
It is our delight to ask more than once.
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini had to ask dozens and dozens of times for the things she needed to accomplish her mission for poor immigrants in the U.S. and around the world. Of course, her missions needed a maximum of compassion. Perhaps, then, there is an inverse proportion to the number of times we have to ask and the amount of compassion we need. Compassion increases as we decrease. But that is just the great paradox of the New Testament: “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will find it” (Mark 8:35).
Comentarios