1 February 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.” 2 Thessalonians 3:3
Paul ends his letter to the Thessalonians by asking for their prayers: “pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified everywhere, just as it is among you, and that we may be rescued from wicked and evil people; for not all have faith.” He is honest about the opposition he meets. But he does not rest his hope on how many believe. He rests it on someone else: “But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.” Our faith rises and falls; the Lord's faithfulness does not. So Paul can end with a blessing that is also a direction for the whole of life: “May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.”
In the Gospel two daughters meet the faithful Lord. A leader of the synagogue kneels before Jesus: “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” On the way a woman who has suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years comes up behind him. Under the law her illness made her unclean and kept her apart from worship and from people. She does not dare to ask; she only reaches out: “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turns and looks at her. He does not scold her for touching him; he calls her by a family name: “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” Then at the leader's house, among the flute players and the noisy mourners, he says, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” They laugh at him. He goes in, takes her by the hand, and the girl gets up. In these last days of Denha Christ is revealed as Lord over sickness and death. A touch of faith is enough, because the one who is touched is faithful.
Theme: “But the Lord is faithful.”
The faithful Lord, the woman who reached out, and the girl raised by the hand.
“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22–23
“But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.” 2 Thessalonians 3:3
Apply: Thank God each morning this week for one sign of his faithfulness.
“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits— who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,” Psalm 103:2–3
“Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.” Matthew 9:22
Apply: Bring one long-standing trouble to Jesus in prayer today.
“Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!” Isaiah 26:19
“But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up.” Matthew 9:25
Apply: Pray for a family that has lost a child or a young person.
Our faith may be small, but the Lord is faithful.
Reach out and touch him; he turns, and he raises up.
Take-home resolution: Each day this week, make one short act of trust in the Lord's faithfulness.
Dear friends, Paul asks the Thessalonians to pray that the word of the Lord may spread, because not all have faith. Then he adds: but the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one (2 Thessalonians 3:3).
In the Gospel a woman who has been ill for twelve years comes up behind Jesus. She thinks: if I only touch his cloak, I will be made well (Matthew 9:21). Jesus turns, looks at her and says: take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.
Then he goes to the house of the synagogue leader, whose daughter has died. The mourners laugh when he says she is sleeping. But he takes her by the hand, and the girl gets up.
Our faith may be as small as a touch. It is enough, because the one we touch is faithful. Let us reach out to him today, and let him direct our hearts to the love of God. Amen.
Children, a sick lady touched just the edge of Jesus' clothes, and she was healed! Jesus loves it when we come to him with trust. What will you ask Jesus today?
Lord Jesus Christ, faithful and true, you turned to the woman who touched your cloak and took the dead girl by the hand. Strengthen us and guard us from the evil one, direct our hearts to the love of God and to your own steadfastness, and when our faith is small, let it be enough to reach out and touch you. Amen.
Both readings turn on trust. Paul knows that “not all have faith”, but he rests his hope on a stronger fact: “the Lord is faithful”. In the Gospel a father whose daughter has just died and a woman ill for twelve years come to Jesus with nothing left but that same trust, and neither is sent away. In the season of Denha, when Christ is shown to the world, today’s question is how far we will rely on him.
Setting.
The Christians of Thessalonica, a port city of Macedonia, had been unsettled by talk that the day of the Lord had already come (2:2). The letter comes to us under the name of Paul, and many hold it to be his; some scholars think that a disciple wrote it in his name. After the teaching on the end in chapter 2, and before the warning against idleness in 3:6–15, stands this short passage of prayer and confidence.
The great missionary does not speak here as someone who needs nothing. He asks a small and troubled community to pray for him.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified everywhere” (3:1)
Paul asks first for the word and only then for himself (v. 2). The word is glorified when people receive it and live it.
“But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.” (3:3)
The Greek for “the evil one” can also be read as “evil”, as in the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:13). The Catechism explains that petition as referring to a person, Satan (CCC 2851).
“May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.” (3:5)
To “direct” is to make a road straight. Paul prays for two things only: love and endurance. A Christian who has these can bear not knowing the date of the Lord’s coming.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism notes how the first communities lived this exchange of prayer: Paul gives them a share in his ministry of preaching, and he intercedes for them in turn (CCC 2636). Those who are sent need the prayer of those who stay. When a parish prays for its priests and missionaries, it is doing what the Thessalonians were asked to do.
Setting.
Matthew 8–9 gathers a series of mighty works after the Sermon on the Mount, showing that the Teacher also acts with authority. Here two stories are woven together, as they are in Mark 5 and Luke 8. Matthew tells them in very few words. He does not give the leader’s name, and in his account the girl has already died when her father comes.
Two details belong to the world of that time. A woman with a continuing flow of blood was ritually unclean under Leviticus 15:25–27, a state which touched her contact with others and with worship; it was not a judgment on her as a sinner. And the flute players belong to the mourning customs of the day: a later Jewish saying (Mishnah, Ketubot 4:4) expects even the poorest man to provide flutes and a mourner at his wife’s burial.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”” (9:21)
Her faith is simple and even a little awkward. She wants to stay unseen. Jesus accepts such faith, but he does not leave her hidden.
“Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”” (9:22)
He calls her “daughter”, in a story that began with another parent’s daughter. A woman who had suffered for twelve years is told she belongs to a family.
““Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him.” (9:24)
Jesus is not denying that she died (v. 18). For him death is a sleep from which he can wake anyone. Compare Daniel 12:2 and what he says of Lazarus in John 11:11.
“he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up.” (9:25)
He says nothing in Matthew’s account. Touching a corpse made a person unclean (Numbers 19:11), but here the touch runs the other way: life passes from him to her.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that the sick still try to touch Jesus, and that “in the sacraments Christ continues to ‘touch’ us in order to heal us” (CCC 1504). It also teaches that Jesus heard the prayer of faith already in his ministry, through signs that anticipate his death and Resurrection (CCC 2616). St Augustine, preaching on this woman as the other Gospels tell of her, contrasts the crowd that presses around Jesus with the one person who truly touches him: the crowd presses, faith touches (in substance).
Was the girl really dead, if Jesus says she is sleeping?
Her father says she has just died (v. 18), and the mourners are already there. Matthew tells this as a raising from death. “Sleeping” is the biblical way of speaking of death in the light of God’s power. Early Christians would soon call their burial grounds “cemeteries”, from a Greek word for a place of sleep.