Jairus' Daughter & the Bleeding Woman
Was there a providential link between the healing of the bleeding woman and the raising of Jairus' daughter—and what does this tell us about the working of providence in our own lives?
In this chapter…
What these miracles show us about the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ
How and why these miracles “forced” Christ to withdraw from Capharnaum
What they tell us about the providential links between our lives and those of others.
These miracles take place towards the end of the early stage of Our Lord’s public life, which Fr Coleridge calls that of “the training of the apostles.” It prompts, Coleridge says, a withdrawal from the area of Capharnaum—and the mention he makes of the Final Judgment of the world is perhaps an indication as to why it falls at the end of the Sundays after Pentecost.
We sometimes hear the Gospels at Mass without any sense of where they fall in Christ’s life. Works like Coleridge’s can help us appreciate the growing tension behind episodes like this—as well as make us wonder why the Church places this reading where she does.
Why do you think this reading falls at this time of the liturgical year?
See also:
_by_Vasiliy_Polenov.jpg){kind=link}
Jairus’ Daughter and the Bleeding Woman
From
The Training of the Apostles, Part III
Fr Henry James Coleridge, 1884, Ch. XXIII, pp 344-359
St. Matt. ix. 18–26; St. Mark v. 22–43; St. Luke viii. 41–56; Story of the Gospels § 66.
(Read at Holy Mass on the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost)
Jairus and his daughter
Our Lord had hardly ended His answer to the questions of the disciples of St. John [‘Why do we and the Pharisees, fast often, but thy disciples do not fast?’], when He was interrupted by a more urgent appeal on His charity from another quarter.
Indeed, it seems as if He had delayed this applicant, in order to answer the disciples of the Precursor.
‘While He was speaking these things unto them, behold a certain ruler, a man whose name was Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue, came and adored Him, and he fell down at the feet of Jesus, beseeching Him that He would come into his house, for he had an only daughter, almost twelve years old, and she was dying, and he besought Him much, saying, My daughter is even now dead, at the point of death, but come lay Thy hands upon her and she shall live, that she may be safe and may live.
‘And Jesus rising up followed him, with His disciples, and a great multitude followed Him and they thronged Him.’
Thus it was that our Lord could not withdraw Himself from the occasions of mercy, and although He was at this time so much bent on secrecy and retirement, He could not, as it were, escape from the discharge of His great office of the Redeemer of mankind and the healer of all evils, whether of body or of soul.
Jairus was probably one of His friends, a friend also of the centurion whose servant our Lord had healed at His last visit to the city, and of the nobleman whose son had been cured the year before, while our Lord was at a distance. They were a little knot of pious souls, to whom His powers were well known, and who had a sort of claim on Him, for the frequent use which He had made of the synagogue, which one of them had built and over which the other presided.
It must have been a piece of sudden good news to Jairus, that the Master had returned so soon from the other side of the lake, and before that return, they must have been looking for Him anxiously. Then the sail was seen in the distance, and the news reached them that our Lord would soon be on the shore. We gather from St. Luke, that they were waiting for Him, and it may have been a momentary disappointment to them that He gave His first attention to the disciples of His dear friend and Precursor.
Our Lord goes with him—the ‘haemorrhoissa’
However, though our Lord assented at once to the invitation of this good man, Jairus had to experience another trial of his patience before he could rejoice at the presence of our Lord in his house.
There was another humble and retiring soul, watching for the arrival of our Lord, and determining within herself to make her venture in applying, in her own way, to the well-known compassion of the Master.
‘And there was a certain woman, having an issue of blood twelve years, who had bestowed all her substance on physicians, and had suffered many things from many physicians, and could not be healed by any, and was nothing the better, but rather worse, who as she heard of Jesus, came in the crowd behind Him, and touched His garment, for she said within herself, if I shall touch only His garment, I shall be healed. And immediately the issue of her blood stopped, and forthwith the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was cured of the evil.’
The Evangelists have so arranged their description of this poor sufferer that we have here a perfect picture of the misery of her bodily state, the inveterate character of the evil, the costliness of the remedies which she had used, and the utter inefficiency of all human physicians in the case.
Her action is one of great modesty, reverence, humility, and also of great confidence in our Lord, though perhaps she may have had but an imperfect notion as to His Divine Person, thinking that she might be healed by Him without His knowing it.
The hems of the garments, or rather perhaps the fringes, were in some degree kept sacred by the Jews, but the expression of touching the hem of the garment is one by which simple humility may be conveyed, as when St. John the Baptist said that he was not worthy to loose the latchet of the shoe of our Lord.
Perhaps it might have been dangerous to leave her imperfect ideas uncorrected, as it might have led to the using of such opportunities as that of which she availed herself, as if the garments of our Lord were amulets or charms, and had in them some intrinsic power of their own for healing diseases.
Our Lord conscious of her cure
But our Lord was probably influenced by other considerations in His forcing the poor woman before us to declare what had taken place.
He knew what was passing, or what had passed in the house of His friend Jairus, since he had left it for the purpose of calling our Lord to his aid. The messengers were already on the way, bearing to Jairus the tidings that since he had left his daughter, she had passed away, and that there was no longer any hope.
The people of Capharnaum had seen many wonderful miracles of our Lord, but they had had no experience of His power to raise the dead to life. As far as we know, the one instance in which that power had been exercised was that of the widow's son of Naim.
Jairus, therefore, would be in danger of failing in the faith necessary, according to the ordinance of God, for the performance of the great miracle which our Lord had in His mind to work in favour of his child, and he might be strengthened and confirmed in faith, at this time of his special trial, by the revelation both of what had just taken place in the case of the woman with an issue of blood, and also of the perfect knowledge of our Lord as to what had passed, as she had hoped, in secret.
For such reasons as these, then, our Lord determined to make this case public, though on other occasions He had often been strict in commanding that His works of mercy of this kind should be concealed.
Who hath touched Me?
‘And immediately Jesus, knowing in Himself that virtue had gone out from Him, turning to the multitude, said, Who hath touched My garments? And His disciples, Peter and those that were with Him, said to Him, Master, the multitude throng and press Thee, Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest Thou, Who hath touched Me? And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched Me, for I know that virtue is gone out of Me. And He looked about to see her who had done this.
‘But the woman, fearing and trembling, seeing that she was not hid, knowing what was done in her, came trembling and fell down before His feet, and declared before all the people for what cause she had touched Him, and how she was immediately cured, and told Him all the truth.
‘But Jesus, turning and seeing her, said, Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace, and be thou whole of thy disease. And the woman was healed from that hour.’
Here again we come on an incident, for the complete understanding of which it is necessary that we should form right notions concerning the Sacred Humanity of our Lord.
His words might seem to imply, in the first place, that virtue could go out from Him, for the purpose and end of healing diseases, as it might go out of some medicinal herb or spring, simply by the contact of the person to be healed with any part of His Body, or with His garments which were in contact with His Body.
In the second place, they might be understood as signifying that He required to be informed of the person in whose favour this miracle had been wrought, although He was conscious that it had been wrought in favour of someone, as if the power of healing which belonged to His Body, as the instrument and organ of His Divinity, was almost like a physical thing—a handkerchief or something of that sort, of which He might feel the departure at the moment when it was taken, but not necessarily know who it was that had taken it.
Reasons of our Lord
But in the first place, our Lord did not need to be informed, either now or at any other time, of what was happening about Him, and the question which He now asked was not asked for His own information, but for the confirmation of the faith of the disciples and of Jairus, and other similar reasons.
In the second place, although His Sacred Body, as the temple of the Divinity, had the power of healing all diseases and infirmities in those who touched it—a power which is now and then dwelt on by St. Luke, who lingers over such details with great and loving attention—still this power was only exercised and put into use when He Himself chose, and not at other times.
He frequently used the touch, or the laying on of hands, for the cure of diseases, but at other times He healed and wrought other miracles by a simple command. When the Evangelists say that virtue went forth from Him, or that as many as touched the hem of His garments were healed, they speak of cases in which our Lord willed it so to be, and they use this language about virtue going forth from Him only on such occasions, and not when the miracles were wrought by a mere command or word.
Thus we must recognize this inherent virtue of the Sacred Humanity, and at the same time understand that it was only exerted in this particular way when our Lord so chose. It cannot be doubted that His Sacred Heart had watched over this poor lady, during the whole of the time when she was debating within herself how to obtain from Him the boon which she desired, that He knew of her approach, and that it was in consequence of a direct and conscious act of His will that her cure was wrought.
The woman coming forward
But it was in His mind not only to heal her, but to use her cure for the benefit of others, as has been said, and also to confirm and strengthen and elevate her faith, which had in it something of imperfection.
The question which He asked was asked for the sake of bringing out, in the most natural way, what He desired to make manifest, and not because He could not have pointed her out at once if He had so chosen. The simple action which is described by the Evangelists, of His looking round to see her who had done this, contained the truth of what we are speaking.
For our Lord would not have looked round for a person whom He could not recognize when He saw her. His eyes sought her out, and by that very search she knew, as the Evangelists say, that she could not be hid. She could hide herself from the eyes of men, for her action in touching Him was one of which no one could take particular notice, especially as so many were pressing on Him in the crowd. But His eyes she could not escape, and so she had to come forward trembling and astonished before the whole crowd, to kneel at His sacred feet, and acknowledge all that had taken place in her.
It was this that our Lord intended, and He at once reassured her against any fear she might have that she had offended Him by her act. ‘He said to her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace.’
It was true that her faith had made her whole, though the direct and principal agent in her healing was the supernatural power which had gone forth from Him. For faith was ordinarily the condition on which His miracles were wrought, and if she had not had faith, she would never have touched Him, nor would her touch have been made the means of her cure. And our Lord always insisted on this condition.
Moreover, He always spoke, even on such occasions as this, when He had manifested His Divine power and authority over nature or disease, with the utmost humility and meekness, attributing the effects to the human cause in those who benefited by them, and not to the supernatural cause of His own touch or word.
Death of the daughter of Jairus
All this incident had taken some little time, and all the while, short as the interval may have been, the loving father of the girl whom our Lord was on His way to heal, was standing by, perhaps inwardly fretting even at a moment's delay.
And then, as it seemed, all his hopes were at once dashed to the ground. Our Lord was still speaking to the lady who had been healed, when the news came that the girl was dead.
‘As He was yet speaking, some come to the ruler of the synagogue, from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead, why dost thou trouble Him? trouble Him not.
‘And Jesus, hearing this word, said to the ruler of the synagogue, the father of the maid,’ (as if Jairus had turned to Him in his agony of grief,) ‘Fear not, believe only, and she shall be safe.’
We are told nothing of the state of mind of the father, but we gather from the narrative that he had sufficient faith not to distrust the word of our Lord, coming so soon on that manifestation of His miraculous power which had just been witnessed.
Precautions of our Lord
It was now clearly our Lord's intention to work, here at Capharnaum, this second great miracle of the raising the dead to life.
His immense charity was thus, as it were, forced to override the counsels of His prudence, which had restrained Him from any great manifestation of His power in this place for some time past—ever since, it would appear, the miracle wrought on the servant of the centurion. This and the other miracles which immediately followed on this memorable day, were to have the effect of driving Him away again, never to return as before. There is but a single instance on record of anything approaching the miraculous as done by Him in Capharnaum after this day.
He at once took what precautions were now possible. It is possible that the delay may have been ordered in His Providence, so that the girl might die, and be raised to life, rather than be cured. For the news that she was dead would incidentally secure greater privacy to our Lord in her father's house.
It seems from the language of the Evangelists, that our Lord at once dismissed the crowd, as far as was possible. This may have been comparatively easy, if they were allowed to draw the natural inference from the news of the death of the girl who had been so ill. For that would lead them at once to disperse, giving up all hope of witnessing a miracle.
St. Mark gives us this intimation in his exact description of the circumstances, for he speaks of the separation from our Lord's company even of the greater number of the Apostles, before he speaks of our Lord's going on to the house. ‘He admitted not any man to follow Him, but Peter and James, and John, the brother of James, and they come to the house of the ruler of the synagogue.’
A second separation took place later, for it appears that on arriving at the house, our Lord found a crowd already there. There may have been time enough, since the maiden had expired, for the collection of the usual mourners.
His words at the house
‘And seeing a tumult, and people weeping and wailing much, when He was come to the house, He suffered not any man to go in with Him, but Peter and James and John, and the father and mother of the maiden.
‘And He saw the minstrels and the multitude making a rout, and going in He saith to them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth! Give place, for the girl is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed Him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.
‘And He having put them all forth, taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with Him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying. And taking the damsel by the hand, He saith to her, Talitha cumi, which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say to thee, arise! And immediately the damsel rose up and walked, and she was twelve years old. And they were astonished with a great astonishment.
‘And He charged them strictly that no man should know it, and commanded that something should be given her to eat.’
Our Lord, all through this incident, was desirous of hiding the miracle which He was about to work from the knowledge of men, for the motives which forced Him at this time to avoid publicity in every possible way.
But we see plainly also that He spoke with His usual humility, so as to make the least of what He was to do. There was also a reason of divine prudence in the words which He used, for by asserting that the maiden was not dead, but asleep, He drew from the witnesses of her death, and from those who had seen the body as it lay on the bed where she had died, the strongest possible confirmation of the truth of the great miracle He was going to perform.
His words were not false, in the sense in which He spoke them, for that is sleep out of which there is to be a speedy awakening, and that is death out of which there is to be no awakening until the Day of Judgment. But, in the case of this girl, she was to be again among her family and friends in a very short time, and was to live among them during the remainder of an ordinary lifetime.
Nor could she have been dealt with, in the world beyond the grave, as one whose time of trial was permanently at an end, and who was never to return to this earth. Thus, in a most true sense, she was asleep, and was soon to wake, though in another sense what the mourners and wailers said of her was true, that she was really dead. Her soul had left her body, there was no life in her, she could never be restored to her parents in this world, except by the power of Him Who is the Master of life and death.
Details of the miracle
The three chosen disciples, and the father and mother of the deceased damsel, were alone in the room with our Lord and the lifeless corpse. These were witnesses enough for the perfect authentication of the miracle, whenever it was necessary to authenticate it, and the whole crowd of those who had been put forth by our Lord were witnesses to the truth of the death of the damsel.
Her new life would be spent among those who had known her, and thus there could not be wanting any portion of the evidence which might be reasonably required. But it was still necessary, for the reasons already mentioned, that the miracle should not be public.
Our Lord had not let anything hinder Him from the manifestation of the miracle wrought on the woman with the issue of blood, for that had been necessary, or at least opportune, for the confirmation of the faith of the father of this girl.
The details of this second miracle are perfectly simple. It was wrought both by word and by touch of that Sacred Humanity, which had in it all healing power for the ills of men. In these circumstances our Lord not only acted as was His wont, that the power might be seen to proceed directly from His Sacred Person, but also did what was natural in arousing from sleep one who lay on a couch.
He took her 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.’
The miracle published
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.
The miracle of Naim contrasted
Another very striking thought in connection with this subject, is that which is suggested by the contrast between the miracle on the widow's son of Naim and that on the daughter of Jairus, which also may be compared with that which was afterwards to be wrought in favour of Lazarus.
These three miracles, as is well known, exhaust the list of the occasions on which our Lord raised the dead to life. Their history may be used as tracing out the gradual deepening and growth of the hostility to Him on the part of the Pharisees, and the influence which that hostility had on His own line of conduct.
The scene at Naim is one of unmixed triumph and joy. Our Lord is accompanied by a crowd of disciples, and a large concourse of people are present from the city itself, to which the widow and her son belonged. There seems no sign of opposition or of incredulity. All is peaceful and calm, lit up by an intense light of faith and hope and charity. There is no concealment on our Lord's part, there is not a voice raised against Him after the wonder has been worked.
The miracle, public as it is, is unsolicited, for no one would have ventured to ask for such a boon at that time. What no one asks for, our Lord gives, out of simple compassion in the first instance, and for many great ends of His own in the second. The rumour spreads over all the land, and reaches even the Baptist in his lonely dungeon in the castle of Machaerus, and thus its effect is to bring about that solemn embassy, so to call it, of St. John to our Lord, when he asked Him whether He was He that was to come, or whether they looked for another.
The contrast is great in the scene at Capharnaum. Our Lord is most careful to hide what He is about to do, and what He has done. He puts out all but the very fewest witnesses, and these He charges not to make it known. He is in the midst of His enemies, and His works of mercy are slandered with a malice worthy rather of Hell than of earth.
Out of mere charity, our Lord is obliged to hide what He does, though that is a work of the highest power and of the tenderest compassion. He cannot help doing what He does, and yet He is forced to draw over it a veil, for fear of intensifying still more miserably the sin of the enemies who dog His every step.
When all is over, and the fame of the great work of mercy flies abroad all over the land, He is compelled to withdraw Himself still more, and after all, the great result is that the atrocious calumny about casting out devils by means of the prince of the devils is immediately renewed.
The raising of Lazarus
An equally striking contrast is observable if these two miracles of resurrection, so different in their circumstances and consequences, are compared to the other great miracle of the raising of Lazarus, worked at a time when our Lord had already retired from the gaze of His enemies.
He could not refuse to listen to the touching words of Martha and Mary. ‘Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick.’ He knew what it would cost Him.
The miracle was wrought before a large company, some of whom were already more than half determined on His death. It was wrought amid our Lord's own tears. He makes a public address of thanksgiving to His Father, and He has to encourage Martha at the last moment, lest her faith might fail. The miracle was the most stupendous, one of the most public, the most fatal in its consequences of all that He ever wrought.
It became the immediate occasion of the plot against His life, which was at last executed by means of the treachery of Judas.
From Fr Henry James Coleridge, The Training of the Apostles, Part III
If you’re enjoying reading Father Coleridge’s rich explanations of the Gospels and the life of Our Lord, then will you lend us a hand and hit subscribe?
Further Reading:
Follow our projects on Twitter, YouTube and Telegram: