In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, you're all bundled
up today, I see. I was listening to one Vespers
last night, and the priest said, Well, tomorrow
we have outdoor liturgy, so be sure you come
dressed warmly. Like one little girl in our parish
said, We never have bad weather in California.
We just don't wear enough clothes, which I thought,
a lot of wisdom, same thing my son said. But
at any rate, today, in addition to the regular
Sunday lectionary about the daughter of Jairus
and the woman with the issue of blood, we also
have, because of the movement of the days, this
is November 8th, the Feast of St. Michael and
all the archangels. and all the angels. And I
originally had planned on saying something about
angels today, and then I looked at the OCA website,
and there's a very extensive article on angels.
You read that, and there's much more there than
you can possibly remember. So I thought, if they
want to learn about angels, then they can just
read that on the OCA website. So what I'm going
to do is just say a few words about angels, and
then I'm going to focus our attention primarily
on the other gospel, the one for this particular
Sunday after Pentecost. Angels, of course, we
believe in because we say in the Creed, that
God is the creator of all things, both visible
and invisible. What are the invisible things?
Things we can't see. Angels. We can't see angels.
We know they exist. There are guardians. In the
baptism service, one of the prayers is, yoke
unto his life, or her life, a radiant angel.
So the church's liturgical tradition is that
each one of us at baptism is assigned by God
an angel to watch over us. We pray at every liturgy
for an angel of peace, a faithful guide, and
a guardian of our souls and bodies. I remember
probably the earliest prayer that i probably
memorized was a little jingle and i'm it's probably
familiar to most or many of you angel of god
my guardian dear to whom god's love commits me
here ever this day be at my side to light to
guard to rule and guide amen and i thought that
was such a beautiful prayer i say it not at the
beginning of the day but i say it when i go to
bed at night So we should remember we not only
have patron saints, but we have an angel who
leads us and guides us and inspires us to do
good things and reminds us not to sin and to
resist temptation. The other gospel. These are
familiar stories to us about the daughter of
the ruler of the synagogue. It's probably the
equivalent of a parish council member or something
like that, whose daughter was dying. And then
on the way, a woman with an issue of blood touches
the hem of his garment and is healed. Now, I'm
very fond, like many of the fathers of the church,
of seeing, well, what does this signify? Does
this remind us of something or stand for something
else? This is what's technically called allegory.
Does this stand for something else? Now, sometimes
it's clear that it stands for something else.
Sometimes the comparisons are a little bit, how
could I say, I don't want to say far -fetched,
but fanciful. That would be a good way to put
them. Some of the fathers of the church see here
that the girl who's dying and the woman with
the issue of blood represent two things. The
girl who's dying represents the synagogue, the
Jewish nation. The woman with the issue of blood
represents the Gentiles. So Jesus comes primarily
to heal the Gentiles. the Israelites, the Jewish
people, who cannot receive this complete forgiveness
of sins and redemption except through the coming
of their Messiah, Jesus Christ. And on the way,
he also touches and heals this woman who had
the issue of blood, who had spent all her money
on other things, other physicians, other gods,
other things. to try and heal her. The girl,
it's interesting, the girl is described, St.
Luke, the gospel, this is found, of course, in
this, these both miracles are linked together,
and they're found in all three of the first three
gospels, the synoptic gospels. Luke, the one
we just read, says that she was dying. And then
word comes from one of the servants to the father
and says, she's just died. St. Mark says, she
was on the point of death. Matthew says that
she had just died. Well, some people might think,
so what's the difference? But what I find there
is fascinating because people that study the
scriptures, I think maybe they run out of really
important things to study, but one of them they
like to say, well, is there a connection? Does
one gospel writer depend on another gospel writer?
Well, you know, you could chase after that idea
forever and ever, and I don't think that even
if we could say they were familiar, they borrowed
this, they borrowed that, still there's an independent
tradition. about these events that they all know
very well through the stories about Jesus and
through the preaching about him. So these little
variations, I think, serve to reinforce the importance
of the scripture writers, especially the gospel
writers, as basically independent witnesses to
the same reality. And they're not just copying.
somebody else's story. Another interesting illustration
of this is Saint Mark says she was the little
daughter of the man. Matthew says she was the
daughter and Luke adds two important ideas here.
She was the only daughter and she was 12 years
old. So once again, an illustration, these minor
little variations in details simply illustrate
not so much any interdependence, but the independent
witness to the reality itself. Before I get into
probably my closing thought to share with you,
I want to remind you that we have, before communion,
there are communion prayers that we should be
saying in addition to our regular evening prayers
or morning prayers. Prayers, depending on how
many you want to say, takes anywhere from 10
to 15, 20 minutes. But we should say a few extra
prayers. before we receive communion, whether
it's the night before or in the morning. Prayers
before communion. They're found in any Orthodox
prayer book. One of them, the woman in today's
gospel has a reminder each and every time we
say these prayers. One of the prayers says, Do
thou, O Christ, our God, who didst justify the
publican, had mercy on the Canaanite woman, open
the gates of paradise to the thief, open to me
the compassion of thy love toward mankind, and
receive me as I approach and touch thee, like
the sinful woman, and like the woman with the
issue of blood. By embracing thy feet, receive
the forgiveness of her sins and the other, but
by touching the hem of thy garment was healed.
So when we say these prayers, this is the woman
comes to our mind each and every time we do that.
There is, I mentioned comparing the three. To
me, it's fun. I enjoy reading to see if there's
any difference. When these particular gospels
are, the stories are told in different, each
one of the gospels. It's an interesting thing
for you to do. Try that once in a while, too.
There's one important item that I found very
fascinating. Mark has a sentence in there that
isn't found in Matthew or Luke. and talking about,
they both say, well, she was sick for 12 years
or for a long period of time and couldn't find
healing at all. Mark adds, and she had suffered
much under many physicians and had spent all
that she had and was no better off but rather
grew worse. I'm sure that you or people you know,
have had that same kind of feeling. Boy, I've
seen all these doctors, and I'm not any better
than I was before. It's kind of frustrating,
isn't it? Well, we know somebody that feels that
way. When I went to see my family physician back
when we lived in Michigan, I told him about the
retired priest who I replaced, and he was still
in the parish. and he went to see the doctor
because, as it turned out to be, he had a hernia.
But he and his family told me, 86 years old,
he never saw a doctor before. And I said to my
doctor, who had a good sense of humor, as you'll
see, I said, you know, how can somebody live
to be 86 and never go to see a doctor? My doctor
said, that's probably why he lived to be 86.
So, are we like this woman who suffers much,
can't find healing? I think we are. Because we
want to have happiness, peace, find some kind
of fulfillment in our life. Jesus is the only
one that can provide this. He's the only one
that can heal that. Constant flow of blood of
being unable to be fully healthy. Faith in our
Lord. And this is what the fathers like to underline.
It's faith in our Lord. Like this woman has.
That because she was unclean, she didn't even
want to come up and ask him anything. She said,
I'm just going to touch the bottom of this garment.
And she was healed. That is the way we are. We
don't find healing in money. We don't find healing
in houses, speed boats, skiing, doing all these
things that attract our attention. The only thing
that finds us peace, happiness, joy, fulfillment
in life is a real relationship and faith in Jesus
Christ and his church. This gives us the healing
and the happiness that the little girl in today's
gospel, and this ill woman had. So let us renew
once again our faith and our commitment today
to our Lord Jesus Christ and our love for him
and his church. Amen.