“If I can but touch his clothes, I shall be healed.”

Perhaps it was this passage that inspired old Catholics to touch and kiss images of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints in churches and chapels.

In our Gospel passage today, Saint Mark tells the story of two great miracles that Jesus performed during His ministry — the healing of the woman who had long suffered from a hemorrhage or bleeding issue and the raising back to life of the dead daughter of Jairus, the synagogue official.

These two miracles show us, first of all, the love of God which He generously showers on us through His Son Jesus, through whom He has come into our midst, touching our lives and strengthening us, leading us back to His loving embrace, giving us new hope and rejuvenating our lives.

What Jesus did with both the hemorrhaging woman and the dead girl shows us that He is truly in charge of all things, over all the matters of the world, over all life and death. And that He does not want us to be lost forever to death, but to return to Him and to live and exist with Him forever in a renewed bond of love.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we listen to these words from the Scriptures, we must all heed the message the Lord through His Church has given us, as He calls on us to listen to Him and to embrace His love, compassion and mercy.

He wants us all to seek Him with faith and love, just as how the woman while trying to hide her shame and condition dared to be brave enough to make her way through the large crowd around the Lord with firm hope and faith in her heart that the Lord would heal her. And of Jairus, who remained faithful and trusting in the Lord when He reassured him and his family that his daughter did not die but would be returned to life while others laughed at the Lord and mocked Him.

We, too must have this strong, enduring and vibrant faith, trust and hope in the Lord at all times.

Each and every one of us is a sinner, brothers and sisters in Christ, and by our ancestors’ disobedience to God and by our own conscious choice to disobey Him and to disregard His Law and commandments, we have fallen into the state of sin and been corrupted by sin’s dangerous stranglehold on us.

But the Lord Who has loved us all has never given up on us, and He has given us the sure hope and guarantee of our liberation and salvation through His own Beloved Son. What we all need to do now is to embrace this most and ever generous love and mercy. The question then is, are we willing to humble ourselves and seek Him, recognizing how wicked and fallen we have ended up, and are we willing to embrace Him with the faith and trust that the people in the Gospel passage today had shown?

Let us all turn to the Lord, our loving God and Father, with renewed love and a desire to serve Him and to follow Him all the days of our lives, rejecting from now on all the allure, temptations and false pleasures that sin and evil have tempted us with, and committing ourselves henceforth to live ever more faithfully in God’s Presence.

Also today, this evening, my Confrere, Father Ryan Bores will be the presider for the Eucharistic Celebration in Thanksgiving of Police Lieutenant Hazel Benito, who is retiring after 22 years of dedicated service as a member of Philippine National Police. Lieutenant Benito, may the Lord continue to help, guide and strengthen you in your journey of faith throughout your life and may He bless every good work, effort and endeavor that you do, now and always. “Do not be afraid; just have faith.”