The raising of Jairus' daughter would not remain hidden, despite Christ’s command
Christ’s hidden miracle of raising Jairus' daughter to life could not remain hidden – but it drove him to withdraw, and heightened the hatred against him.
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Christ’s hidden miracle of raising Jairus’ daughter to life could not remain hidden – but it drove him to withdraw, and heightened the hatred against him.
Editor’s Notes
In this part on the healings of Jairus’ daughter and the bleeding woman, Fr Coleridge tells us…
How the raising of Jairus’s daughter spread despite Christ’s desire for secrecy.
That divine providence weaves together many lives through a single act of grace.
Why this hidden miracle stands in contrast to Naim’s joy and Lazarus’s fatal publicity.
He shows us that even the most secret acts of mercy may bear far-reaching consequences across the whole Church.
For more context on this episode, see Part I.
Jairus’ Daughter and the Bleeding Woman
The Training of the Apostles, Part III
Chapter XXIII
St. Matt. ix. 18–26; St. Mark v. 22–43; St. Luke viii. 41–56; Story of the Gospels § 66.
Burns and Oates, 1884
(Read at Holy Mass on the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost)
Why Jesus delayed healing Jairus’ daughter and healed the bleeding woman instead
Why did Christ ask who touched him, if he already knew it was the bleeding woman?
Why did Christ say Jairus’ daughter ‘is not dead, but asleep’?
The raising of Jairus’ daughter would not remain hidden, despite Christ’s command
The miracle published
Jesus took Jairus’ daughter by the hand, spoke to her, and lifted her up. Her spirit returned, and she arose immediately and walked. All these circumstances show the completeness of the cure wrought on her, for in ordinary cases, a person who had just been brought back from the other world would have been weak, and unable to move with the vigor of one who had never been struck down by disease or death.
And He bade them give her to eat, to show, as it seems, the reality of her restored life, and that she was not a phantom.
‘And they were astonished with a great astonishment. And He charged them strictly that no man should know it.’
But in this, as in other cases, it was impossible for the miracle to be kept secret. The parents could not understand the motives of charity which caused our Lord to insist so much on secrecy, and besides, the girl herself was there, the living evidence of what had been done for her by our Lord.
It could not be but that the servants and friends of the family would soon come to know of her restoration, and in a city like Capharnaum, the news of such a wonder would very soon spread. ‘The fame went abroad into all that country.’
It cannot be doubted that this publicity of so great a miracle would exasperate, still more than ever, the hostility of the enemies of our Lord, and this may account for the line of conduct which was now adopted by Him of keeping more than ever aloof from Capharnaum, in which city we are not certain that He ever spent more than a few passing hours at a time after this day.
But of this we shall have to speak hereafter. The miracle before us suggests two heads of consideration, distinct the one from the other, and on these we may spend what remains to us of the present chapter.
Providence of God in linking our lives together
In the first place, the incidents of this day, of which we have not yet come to the end, but especially the two miracles just spoken of, exemplify very pointedly a principle in the working of God's Providence which is very well worthy of particular attention.
The two miracles which we have lately been considering, when taken together, form an instance of that connection which constantly subsists between the lives of different persons, whether known to or related to one another, or not.
It is clear that the incident of the cure of the lady with an issue of blood, had a marked influence in bringing about the miracle of the raising of the girl to life, and that, on the other hand, the subject of the former miracle would not have had the opportunity of drawing near to our Lord, as He was passing through the streets in the midst of the crowd, but for the petition of Jairus to our Lord that He would come and lay His hands on his daughter.
This is the incomprehensible marvel of the wisdom of God, that He makes our lives link in one with another in so close a manner, and provides for the good of each one of a large number of souls by the same stroke of His hand, while He makes us almost infinitely dependent one on another, so that no single life of all His children, is without its continual and manifold influences on the lives of those around him.
It is probable that the revelation of these workings of Providence will be among the most beautiful parts of that great manifestation of the ways of God which will take place at the last day. One great reason for the General Judgment, as distinguished from that which each soul undergoes singly at the moment of death, is this declaration of God's ways in the treatment of men, not singly, but in the various relations and mutual offices in which they are placed in the world as it actually is.
This is one of the great points which stand out prominently, in connection with these miracles on the last day, as it seems, when our Lord was at Capharnaum for any length of time. The circumstances of the case have led the Evangelists to trace out for us more closely than usual the connection between one of these incidents and the rest, a connection which might have been traced out in thousands of other such occurrences, if such had been the will of our Lord in the composition of the Gospel history.
It is chiefly with regard to Capharnaum that we have hints of this kind. We seem to see the traces of a history of the dealings of our Lord with a certain number of chosen souls, many of whom became very conspicuous in His service. We have mentioned the little cluster of friends who belonged to our Lord's disciples in that city—the nobleman who began, so to say, the series of mercies, by obtaining from Him the healing of his son when our Lord was at a distance, the Roman centurion who built the synagogue in which our Lord so often taught, and it is natural to join to him Jairus, the ruler of the same synagogue.
All these men, and their families, were the objects, so to say, of a connected Providential action. If the circle included a Gentile officer, it may also have taken in the good publican St. Matthew, perhaps also, though this is conjecture, the family of St. Martha and St. Mary Magdalene. This little band of friends would probably have made themselves the friends of our Blessed Lady, and of those cousins of our Lord with whom she lived.
Thus in the very midst of this city, which, after all, was to reject our Lord and to acquire for itself the fatal celebrity given to it by His denunciations of its hardness of heart, there would be this little assembly of devout souls and followers of our Lord, for most of whom He had exerted His miraculous powers. The mercy shown to one led on to the mercies earned by others, and thus the precious grace spread from heart to heart.
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