Daily Gospel Reflection
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February 28, 2020
The disciples of John came to Jesus, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
And Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”
Shortly before this exchange, Jesus heals a paralyzed man, and as he’s saying the words in today’s gospel, a distraught father interrupts him, asking him to restore his daughter to life. Jesus is clearly a healer. He even spells it out for us: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Matt. 9:12). So why does he incongruously identify himself as a bridegroom here?
As a medical student, I know a fair amount about physicians and relatively little about bridegrooms – but I’ll do my best. In order to heal, physicians need to know their patients well, from the inner workings of their body, to their past health history, and even to their hopes and fears. A bridegroom knows his bride well, but instead of a CT scan and a social history, he knows her quirks, her dreams, and her sufferings. And instead of gathering all of this knowledge for the purpose of her healing, he gathers it because he loves her and wants to be in union with her.
Christ, our bridegroom and Divine Physician, knows us better than any earthly spouse or physician could. He knit us together in the womb (Job 10:11); he numbers the hairs on our heads (Luke 12:7); he knows our words before we even say them (Psalm 139:4). He knows us so that he can heal us, but he also knows us simply because he loves us and desires union with us. This Lent, how can we respond to this, in the ways we let ourselves be healed and enter into union with Christ?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, in Christ’s presence is endless joy. He is the bridegroom and the Church his bride. Though the risen Christ is with us always, we live in that age before his final manifestation and coming in glory. Give us faith and hope as our hearts yearn with spousal love for the bridegroom for when he will come in glory and we partake of the heavenly wedding feast. Amen.
Saint of the Day
From 249-263, pestilence and disease ravaged the Roman empire. At its worst, plague killed 5,000 people in Rome in one day.
Alexandria, the great city in Egypt, was not safe from the crisis. The city had already suffered from famine, and desperate people turned to violence. On top of all of this, the plague struck—nearly every single family in the city suffered at least one death.
The city was in chaos—corpses lay in the streets and homes, unburied, and the smell of sickness and death was everywhere. All of this inspired fear in Alexandrians—as soon as anyone fell ill, they were abandoned by their family and closest friends.
Up to this point, Christians in Alexandria had suffered under Roman persecution, and they were forced to gather in secret to worship. Sometimes they came together at a hidden location, other times they all went to sea in a boat to be safe.
When the city fell apart from fear, sickness, and death, Christians stood tall—they disregarded the danger from the persecution, and from their own exposure to the plague, and cared for the suffering. They tended sick and dying people, carrying the dead on their own shoulders for a proper burial.
The bishop of Alexandria, St. Dionysius, described their service:
"Many who had healed others became victims themselves. The best of our brethren have been taken from us in this manner: some were priests, others deacons and some laity of great worth."
Because these Christians willingly gave their life in the course of living their faith with heroic virtue, they are recognized as martyrs.
Martyrs of Alexandria, you gave your lives to care for your plague-stricken persecutors—pray for us!
Image Credit: Today's featured image, a detail depicting the Plague of Ashod, is in the public domain. Last accessed December 5, 2024 on Wikimedia Commons. Modified from the original.
