17 September 2019
Tuesday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
What moves Jesus? Yesterday, we saw that the elders of the synagogue in Capernaum thought that the needs of a deserving man would stir His Heart, a man like the Centurion, who had done much for the Jewish people out of love for Israel. Yet today, we see His Heart truly moved. Jesus saw a widow burying her only son, and “He was moved with pity for her” (Lk. 7:13). He sees the very human grief of a woman who has lost her last bit of family, and who (lacking male relatives) no longer has the means to be supported. He sees human need, human grief, and by this He is moved.
Knowing this, we can take comfort in our own lives. We will never “deserve” Jesus’ mercy or help. Nothing we do will ever earn His miracles, His love, His grace. But needs and grief we have in abundance. We will worry, as the widow did, how we will support ourselves. We may feel, as the widow felt, the grief of losing much (and perhaps even all) of our family. In this grief, in this brokenness, we will certainly move Jesus. He will see our brokenness, and He will tend our needs.