HE HANDED THE BOY TO HIS MOTHER

HE HANDED THE BOY TO HIS MOTHER

I have friends in Dublin who have a picture in their entrance way of a dying child in bed. The doctor stands pensively considering his inability to do anything. The father sits on a chair, his elbow on his knee with his gaze fixed on the boy. The mother is distraught burying her head in the bed covering. Whenever I enter that house it sends a pang into my heart. The mixture of compassion and helplessness is overwhelming.

Elijah came across just such a scene when he lodged with the widow of Zarephath. Her only child dies and she upbraids the prophet for bringing ruin on her. Elijah takes the child upstairs, stretches himself on the boy and prays. The child comes back to life. Jesus too met a widow in a town called Nain who was on the way to bury her only son. At his touch the boy comes back to life.

We are not told that Elijah raised anyone else and Jesus only raised a handful. So their actions were not solutions; they were signs. The boy in the picture in Dublin was not raised to life; nor are the countless people we pray for. When we talk of death people tense up and tread carefully. Traditionally the whole subject is charged with unknown forces and best approached with caution.

Christianity has tamed death and made it a friend. I remember an extreme case when I travelled in a hearse with a fellow Jesuit who was burying his much loved mother. He was normally a joker and saw no reason to stop being one just because he was burying his mother. The journey was a hilarious procession as he regaled us with stories of his mother. I happened to glance at the driver of the hearse and he was bemused.

The truth surely is that death concentrates our minds for a moment on the transcendent, that which is beyond our knowing. Where there is little faith people run from death or smother it in fancy coffins and multitudes of flowers. But death is a doorway. It invites us. It questions us. It reflects back into our lives. The One who receives us when we die is the same One who loves us while we are alive. He is tireless compassion. He waits on the other side of the door.

This doesn’t dry the tears of the woman in the picture in Dublin or Syria or Nigeria. But it changes her tears of despair into tears of sorrow. The picture I saw was full of sorrow. There is no running from that. But the sorrow is not of despair. Somewhere in the sorrow there is an opening to hope. The child of the widow of Nain will die again. But if it happens while his mother is still alive she will weep in another way.

Pope Francis has called for a Year of Mercy. He cannot call for a year of miraculous healing. He cannot solve all the problems. None of us can.  But we can be signs, beams of hope. It is not just that we say the dead will rise again. They will. But that is not all. Death is no longer an enemy; it is an invitation to change, to build a new world even if we ourselves will not be there to see it.

We are told that Elijah “gave the boy to his mother.” These are the very words Jesus used with the widow of Nain. What do those words mean? In one sense the answer is obvious. But perhaps there is also a hint of the kingdom of God breaking into her world; something new, eternal and joyful beyond measure.  

5 June 2016                             Sunday 10 C

1 Kings 17:17-24                    Galatians 1:11-19                               Luke 7:11-17