Translation From the Holy Gospel According to Matthew (9:18-26)
At that time, as Jesus was speaking to the multitudes, behold a certain ruler came up, and adored Him, saying: Lord, my daughter is even now dead; but come lay Thy hand upon her, and she shall live. And Jesus, rising up, followed him, with His disciples. And behold a woman, who was troubled with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind Him, and touched the hem of His garment. For she said within herself: If I shall touch only His garment, I shall be healed. But Jesus turning and seeing her, said: Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. And when Jesus was come into the house of the ruler, and saw the minstrels and the multitude making a tumult, He said: Give place; for the girl is not dead, but sleeps. And they laughed Him to scorn. And when the multitude was put forth, He went in and took her by the hand. And the maid arose. And the fame thereof went abroad into all that country.
A Message from St. Augustine’s Sermons: 63B.
Christ is touched by faith.
Past events, when they are recounted, both enlighten the mind and strengthen hope for good things in the future. Jesus was on his way to raise up the daughter of the president of the synagogue who, he had been informed, had just died, and as he was going along, his path, you could say, was crossed by a woman afflicted with a disease, full of faith, constantly losing blood, destined to be redeemed by blood. And she said to herself, If I touch just the hem of his garment, I shall be restored to health (Mark 5:28; Matt 9:21). The moment she said it, she touched—Christ is touched by faith. She came up and touched, and what she believed actually happened.
But the Lord asked, Who touched me? (Lk 8:45). He wants to know, though nothing is hidden from him; he asks who did it, though he himself knew all about it before it was done. So there is a significant mystery here; let us look more closely, and as far as he grants us, let us understand.
Christ was sent to the Jews.
The daughter of the synagogue president stands for the Jewish people, while this woman stands for the Church of the Gentiles. Christ the Lord, born of the Jews in the flesh, was present among these Jews in the flesh; he sent others to the nations, he didn’t go himself. He spent his whole bodily and visible life in Judea. That’s why the apostle says, For I say that Christ was a servant of the circumcision on account of the truth of God, to confirm the promises to the fathers—Abraham, in fact, had been told, In your seed shall all the nations be blessed (Gen 22:18)—but that the nations glorify God for his mercy (Rom 15:8-9).
So Christ was sent to the Jews. He was on his way to raise up the daughter of the synagogue president. The woman breaks in, and is healed. She is first healed by faith, and appears to be unknown to the savior. How else could he say, Who touched me? God’s ignorance is a guarantee of a significant mystery; it must surely signify something, when the one who cannot be ignorant is ignorant. So what does it signify? The healing of the Church of the nations, which Christ never saw or visited in person; his voice on this point can be heard in the psalm, A people which I did not know served me, with the obedience of the ear it obeyed me (Psa 18:43-44). The world heard and believed; the Jewish people saw and first crucified him, but afterward also came to him. The Jews too believe, but at the end of the world.
The apostles are the garment, Paul the hem.
Meanwhile, let this woman be healed, let her touch the hem of the garment. Take the garment as being the choir of the apostles. In it there was one who was the last and the least, a kind of hem, the apostle Paul. He is the one who was sent to the nations, and who says, I indeed am the least ofthe apostles, who am notfit to be called an apostle (1 Cor 15:9). Again he says, I am the last of the apostles (1 Cor 15:8). This last and least hem, this was what was needed to restore the unhealthy woman to health.
What we have heard actually happened, what we have heard is actually happening. Every day this woman touches the hem, every day she gets better. This bloody flux, you see, is really the flux of the flesh, of extravagant self-in dulgence. When the apostle is heard, when that last and least hem is heard, and he says, Put to death your members which are on the earth, the bloody flux is held in check, fornication is held in check, drunkenness is held in check, worldly pleasures are held in check, all the works of the flesh are held in check.
Don’t be surprised; the hem has been touched. When the Lord said, Who touched me? he knowingly did not know; he was suggesting and indicating the Church, which he did not see in his own person, but redeemed with his own blood.