The Widow of Naim

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“It happened that soon afterwards Jesus went to a town called Naim, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. Now when he was near the gate of the town, there was a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of townspeople was with her.

“When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ Then he went up and touched the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, ‘Young man, I tell you, arise!’ And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

“Everyone was filled with awe and glorified God saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us; God has visited his people.’ And this view of him spread throughout Judea and all over the countryside” (Luke 7:11-17).

Our Lord was approaching this small town. We’re told that there were a great number of people with Him. It was one of the moments of popularity of Our Lord. There was a big to-do happening. He was going into this small town.

But then they meet a funeral procession coming out. A widow was about to bury her only son. Quite a contrast.

Our Lord is moved by this scene, possibly envisioning His own mother at His own funeral. He reaches out to her with His compassionate heart. We're told, “When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her” (Luke 7:13).

The evangelists are accustomed to pointing out Christ's reaction to suffering. On other occasions, we're told, “He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36).

When a leper with great faith implores Our Lord's help, moved with pity, he stretches out his hand and he cured him” (cf. Mark 1:40-42).

Many times, we're spoken to about how the merciful heart of Jesus reaches out to people.

Before the great crowd that has no food, He tells His disciples, “I have compassion on the crowd.” And therefore, He multiplied the loaves and the fish (Mark 6:34-44, 8:1-9).

In response to the insistent cries of two blind men, Jesus in pity touches their eyes and they receive their sight (Matt. 20:29-34).

Our Lord, when He sees this widow, stops what He's doing, stops this whole procession of people that are going towards the town. Maybe He had many things to do in that town, or appointments, or many people to speak to. But all that can wait.

Very often in Scripture Our Lord turns away from the crowds and focuses on the individual. God “reads the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). He looks into broken hearts. He's interested in mending them.

Fulton Sheen says when God allows hearts to be broken, it's because He wants to enter into them a little more (cf. Henry Dieterich,Through the Year with Fulton Sheen). To fix those hearts, we just have to give Him all the pieces.

When they see this great humanity of Christ, it's not overawed by the crowds, or His schedule, or all the other things He has to do. He's focused on human persons.

If we want to be more Christ-like, sometimes in our day we also have to stop what we're doing—all the busy things, all the exciting things, the buzz that may be going on around us—because we see a human heart that is broken or is suffering.

St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Mercy is proper to God” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II, II, Question 30). The mercy of God has its most perfect manifestation in Christ.

“Through his lifestyle and through his actions, Christ revealed that love is present in the world in which we live—an effective love, a love that addresses itself to man and embraces everything that makes up his humanity” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Dives in misericordia, Point 3, November 30, 1980).

John Paul II liked to say that “mercy is another word for love” (Ibid., Point 7). We're called to show mercy in all sorts of moments, to be Christ-like as we reach out to the widows of Naim that may be around us.

“This love makes itself particularly noticed in contact with suffering, injustice, or poverty—in contact with the whole historical ‘human condition,’ which in various ways manifests man's limitation and frailty, both physical and moral” (Ibid., Point 3).

The Gospels inspire us to rely on the merciful Heart of Jesus in our every physical and moral petition. He awaits our loving plea.

He knows what we're going through. He knows what it is to have a broken heart. He knows that we need His loving support.

We're told in the Psalms, “Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to you! Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress! Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call!” (Ps. 102:1-2).

The Lord hears our every word. He's there to help us immediately.

God had planned that that widow would be coming out of the town at that particular moment when Christ was coming in.

In all the difficult, heartbreaking moments of our life, we also meet Jesus along the way. God has planned this to lift us up, to give us a new beginning, to help us to see the providential hand of God in all the things that are happening.

Seeing the widow of Naim, “Jesus had compassion on her and said, ‘Do not weep.’ He came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still, and he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’ The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother (Luke 7:13-15).

It's a very poignant moment. Christ has time for these things.

Lord, may you help us also to have time for these rich moments of humanity that you place within our grasp, that reveal a great beauty.

Many Fathers of the Church have seen in the widow of Naim an image of the Church, inasmuch as the Church welcomes home sinners through the merciful intercession of Christ. “He gave him to his mother.”

The Church is a mother “who intercedes for each one of her children like the widow of her only son” (St. Ambrose, Commentary on St. Luke’s Gospel).

St. Augustine comments that the Church “rejoices every day at the conversion of sinners.”

You can imagine the joy of that widow to have her son returned. It's emphasized to us that it was her only son. Maybe her only child.

“The only son,” said St. Augustine, “had been dead according to the flesh, but these sinners had been dead according to the spirit” (St. Augustine, Sermon 98).

If the Lord is moved by a crowd which is hungry, how much more will He be moved to assist someone who has a spiritual affliction?

We’re told: “The Church lives an authentic life when she professes and proclaims mercy—the most stupendous attribute of the Creator and the Redeemer—and when she brings people close to the sources of the Savior's mercy, of which she is the trustee and dispenser” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Dives in Misericordia, Point 13, November 30, 1980).

In a special way in this period of Lent, the Church extends her hands of mercy to the whole world.

Often at this time, we see a photo of the Holy Father in a confessional box in St. Peter's, and previous popes before him, like a visual message, a visual beckoning to the whole world to come closer.

This mission of mercy is realized when the Church leads people to “conscious and mature participation in the Eucharist and in the sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation. The Eucharist brings us ever nearer to that love which is more powerful than death” (Ibid.).

We could try to use these days of Lent to build up our faith in the Blessed Eucharist, preparing for Holy Thursday with each one of our receptions of Holy Communion, with each one of our Masses, so that we are going to come to a crescendo in the Holy Week, and use well this great time of spiritual bonanza.

“It is the sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation that prepares the way for each individual, even those weighed down with great faults” (Ibid.).

We have to try and look around us. Who are those with broken hearts or broken souls? We have to try and reach out to them, push them a little bit closer.

It's in that sacrament of Reconciliation that “each person can experience mercy in a unique way, [that is,] the love which more powerful than sin” (Ibid.).

Christ is very much present in today's world. He continues to have compassion on the crowd.

No matter how far away we might find some individual in our circle of influence, we know that Christ is interested in that soul. He wants to stop in His tracks and turn towards that individual.

He's most concerned about those individuals who are weighed down by the burden of their sins. To each of us He says, “Follow me.”

He invites us to a deeper examination of conscience and to throw off the weight of sin, which is the only real evil in the world.

The world presents all sorts of other things to us as evils. But sin is the only evil. And war is a consequence of sin.

Through the sacrament of Confession, He cures the wounds caused by sin with His great mercy. This sacrament has been made for us because of the likelihood of our many falls.

It's the sacrament of divine patience, just like we see those pictures of the Holy Father in a confessional in St. Peter's, waiting. Waiting for souls.

St. Josemaría encouraged all his priests to sit in the confessional and to wait. And to wait and to wait—to do your breviary, or your reading, or your preparing of classes or meditations—but to wait. And eventually, the souls will come (cf. Romana No. 49, The Teachings of St. Josemaría for Priests).

It's the sacrament of divine patience. This is where Our Father God awaits the return of the prodigal son. God acts through the sacrament of Penance.

We could ask ourselves: How well do we appreciate the sacrament of mercy which Christ has given to us?

Do we try to receive it with greater frequency or greater refinement, using the graces of this liturgical period to go up a notch or two in our spiritual life?

If we hear of the great sportsmen improving their game, the Messis, the Ronaldo's, the Tiger Woods, or the other people who are winning the great tournaments around the world, in The Dalles—in our spiritual life, we are called to be functioning in the same sort of realm, improving our game.

The sacrament not only frees us from sin but also strengthens us for our interior struggle. It gives us grace for the battles that we have to fight for a greater fortitude, a greater charity, greater kindness and patience, greater order, greater industriousness.

The mercy of God is limitless. As Christ stopped on the way into Naim, He stops for each individual soul.

“Also infinite therefore is the Father's readiness to receive the prodigal children who return to his home.” His mercy is inexhaustible. He's looking out every day and he sees the son coming when he was yet a long way off.

“Infinite are the readiness and power of forgiveness which flow continually from the marvelous value of the sacrifice of the Son. No human sin can prevail over this power or even limit it.

“On the part of man only a lack of goodwill can limit it, a lack of readiness to be converted and to repent, in other words persistence in obstinacy, opposing grace and truth” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Dives in Misericordia, Point 13, November 30, 1980).

We ourselves are the only ones who can get in the way of the effectiveness of this divine medicine.

As we grow in our knowledge of and adherence to the Lord, we need to grow in our desire for interior purification.

We could say at this moment of our prayer: Lord, give me a greater desire these days for interior purification, that I might get to know my egoism, my pride, my selfishness a little better, and do battle with the ugly things that are there inside me.

We can try to avoid routine in our confessions, filling them with the sorrow of love.

St. Josemaría recommended looking at Christ on the Cross or contemplating the sorrowful mysteries just for a few moments before making our Confession. It's good to approach each Confession as if it was our last Confession.

There are five conditions for a good Confession. Probably we learned them years ago.

Examine our conscience and make a thorough review of our sins and bad habits, particularly the mortal sins that may be there.

Secondly, try to foster a certain sorrow for sins, to be truly contrite, which involves a desire to be better.

Have a purpose of amendment so that we have this desire not to sin anymore.

Then we have to go and actually confess those sins, to seek Christ's pardon in a personal encounter.

That's how the sacrament was instituted, by way of judgment: “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven, whose sins you shall retain, they are retained” (John 20:23). The priest has to make a judgment about the sorrow of the penitent.

If somebody comes and says, ‘I murdered fifty people today and I'm going to murder another fifty if I get a chance,’ that person is not sorry. That's why the priest has to hear.

If the person says, ‘I murdered fifty people this week and I hope to God I will never ever in my life murder anybody ever again,’ that person can receive absolution, because they want to be better. They want to improve. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

The priest has to make a judgment. That's how the sacrament is instituted, and that's why we don't confess our sins directly to God.

And then we can receive that liberating absolution. A man told me once, who had been a Protestant in his former life, how he really appreciated the sacrament of Confession.

‘Because,’ he says, ‘when you confess your sins to God it sounds very good, but you never really know if you've been forgiven or not. But when I hear those words of absolution, I know that I walk out of here a free man.’

The fifth condition for a good Confession is to do the penance, to fulfill the penance imposed by the confessor.

As a general rule, it's very good to fulfill the penance immediately after the Confession, not to say ‘I'll do it tomorrow’ or ‘I'll do it later’ because you might forget.

Your sins are already forgiven, but the fulfillment of the penance is necessary for the integrity of the sacrament. If you get into the habit of doing the penance there and then, that's a very good thing.

And although it's not obligatory or necessary, it could be a very good habit to repeat the penance for the sanctity of the priest who heard your Confession. Thank God that he is there to hear that Confession. Pray for priests.

The penance is not merely a work of piety. It also serves as an act of reparation and satisfaction for the sins committed.

If we try to have a regular appointment for our Confession, that facilitates many things. It's a small thing in our week. It just takes a few minutes.

It might take a long time to get to the church or to get to the priest. That in itself can be a great act of penance. It shows Our Lord how serious we are.

But that short Confession can bring a great order in your life, in your family, in your marriage. It helps many other things to be ordered.

God's mercy is infinite. It's greater than His justice. He's the Father of mercy. He sees in secret and He wishes to reveal the mystery of His love.

Modern man needs mercy. John Paul II said that “mercy is another word for love. … One of the principal themes of Our Lord's preaching was mercy,” in fresh aspects all the time. “Luke's Gospel is the Gospel of mercy” (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical, Dives in misericordia, Point 3, November 30, 1980).

Christ reveals the content of the mercy of God. He wants that our lives will be guided by mercy and love. Christ is the model of mercy towards others.

“The merciful shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7). Mercy signifies a special power of love that prevails over sin.

The subtleties of love become manifest in God's mercy. Mercy is a notion that pertains to God, but also to men. It's a sign of the closeness of man to God. “Contrasted with God's justice, it is more powerful and more profound” (cf. John Paul II, Ibid.).

You could say that today God has thrown a party during which we can receive God's infinite mercy. He invites us to go to the party to receive His mercy, the eternal wedding feast.

“No human sin can erase the mercy of God, or prevent him from unleashing all his triumphant power, if only we call upon him. … Sin…makes the love of the Father even more radiant. In order to ransom a slave, he sacrificed his Son: his mercy towards us is Redemption” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Veritatis splendor, Point 118, August 6, 1993).

Without sin, there is no mercy. St. Augustine says, “O happy fault!” (Exultet).

Happy fault that original sin was, because “if Adam had not sinned, Christ would not have come,” and man would not know the extent of God's love, of God's mercy, for him (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, Question 1; Augustine, De Verb. Apost. Vii, 2).

“It is proper to God to exercise mercy, and he manifests his omnipotence particularly in this way” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II, II, Question 30).

“St. Thomas Aquinas's words show that God's mercy, rather than a sign of weakness, is the mark of his omnipotence.” And so, we're invited “to live out in our daily lives the mercy which the Father continually extends to all of us” (Pope Francis, Bull of Indiction, Misericordiae vultus, Points 6, 25, April 11, 2015).

“Christ is the Incarnation of Mercy,” John Paul II says. “In Christ and through Christ, God also becomes especially visible in his mercy; that is to say, there is emphasized that attribute of divinity which the Old Testament, using various concepts and terms, already defined as ‘mercy.’

“Christ confers on the whole of the Old Testament tradition about God's mercy a definitive meaning. Not only does he speak of it and explain it by use of comparisons and parables, but, above all, he himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He himself, in a certain sense, is mercy” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Dives in misericordia, Point 2, November 30, 1980).

That gesture, whereby He stops on His way into the town of Naim and reaches out in love to this poor widow and works a wonderful miracle for her, is something very eloquent.

“To the person who sees it in him—and finds it in him—God becomes ‘visible’ in a particular way as the Father who is rich in mercy (Eph. 2:4).”

John Paul II had an Encyclical early in his pontificate precisely with that title: “Rich in Mercy”–(Dives in Misericordia).

“We need constantly to contemplate the mystery of mercy. It is a wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace. Our salvation depends upon it.

“In the parables devoted to mercy, Christ reveals the nature of God as that of a Father who never gives up until He has forgiven the wrong and overcome rejection with compassion and mercy.

“Mercy is the very foundation of the Church's life.” She has an endless desire to show mercy.

“All of her pastoral activity should be caught up in the tenderness she makes present to believers. … The Church is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel, which in its own way must penetrate the heart and mind of every person” (Pope Francis, Bull of Indiction, Misericordiae vultus, Points 2, 9, 10, 12, April 11, 2015).

Pope Francis has said: “But we know one thing: nothing is impossible for God's mercy! Even the most tangled knots are loosened by his grace. And Mary, whose ‘yes’ opened the door to God to undo the knot of the ancient disobedience, is the Mother who patiently and lovingly brings us to God, so that he can untangle the knots of our soul by his fatherly mercy.

“We all have some of these knots and we can ask in our heart of hearts: What are the knots in my life? ‘Father, my knots cannot be undone!’

“It is a mistake to say anything of the sort!” said the Holy Father. “All the knots of our heart, every knot of our conscience, can be undone.

“Do I ask Mary to help me trust in God's mercy, to undo those knots, to change? She, as a woman of faith, will surely tell you: ‘Get up, go to the Lord: he understands you.’ And she leads us by the hand as a mother, Our Mother, to the embrace of Our Father, the Father of mercies” (Pope Francis, Address, October 12, 2013).

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

PKN