THREE WOMEN

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Three Women.”

Today - February 5^th is the Feast of St. Agatha - and I’ll be reading the gospel for today - the 4^th Monday in Ordinary Time - Mark 5: 21-43.

I would like to talk about 3 women.

THE FIRST WOMAN

The first woman is the daughter of Jairus - a 12 year old  girl.

She’s the daughter of a synagogue official and she is critically ill.

The story here in the gospel of Mark is a wonderful story - with various tiny details. It shows the love of a father for his daughter. Jesus takes her by the hand.  The assumption is that it’s a story closer to the time of Jesus - because it has Aramaic in it, “Talita koum”. It’s about her - not Jesus. He asks the family to keep it quiet. That’s significant - because there is a large crowd outside the house. And lastly Jesus says, “Get her something to eat.”

THE SECOND WOMAN

The second woman is also in today’s gospel. She is a  woman who has medical problems - problems with her blood. She has had her blood problems for 12 years - for as long as Jairus’ daughter has lived.

Mark is the best of the 4 gospels for details. He tells us that the woman has gone broke with medical bills from doctors.

She comes up with a plan. Obviously she has heard that Jesus is a healer - so her plan is to sneak up behind Jesus when he’s in a crowd and just touch the hem of his garment and   be healed.

She does just that and Jesus feels his healing powers going out of him and into this woman and she is healed.

Jesus turns around and asks, “Who touched me?”

Finally,  the woman fesses up. She has been healed.  Jesus tells her to go in peace and be free of your illness.

THE THIRD WOMAN

Those two women are in today’s gospel.

This third woman is Saint Agatha. Today is her feast day. She was an early Christian martyr.

She was killed around 253 A.D.

The church presents 4 women martyrs for the 4 winter months: Cecilia - November; Lucy - December; Saint Agnes - January; and today’s saint, Saint Agatha -  February.

Agatha  was a virgin Martyr. She was challenged to give up her chastity and virginity  to a tyrant down there in Southern Italy - in Sicily. She was beaten and martyred.

Great legends and stories came up about these women saints in the church.

Here is the statistic that grabbed me about St. Agatha. Last night, when reading up about Saint Agatha I read that religious ceremonies and processions last 3 days at this moment in Catalania, Sicily. Two different articles that I read said that it’s the second largest religious ceremonies in the whole world.  Over 1 million people are in Catania in Sicily for St. Agatha every  February 3, 4 and 5^th.

I assume the 1^st is the annual pilgrimage of Muslims - the HAJJ - to Mecca. Over 2 million go there in August or so - for 5 days.

A big silver cart that  weighs 40,000 pounds - with a very expensive statue of   St. Agatha - is pushed through the city. Type into Google, Saint Agatha, for details - especially thousands of men in white pushing the carriage that is loaded with jewelry

CONCLUSION

That’s it. That’s enough.