The Gospel According to the Son

23

On my return to Capernaum, one of the elders of the synagogue (his name was Jairus) stepped forward and knelt at my feet. Until now, not one of the Pharisees had offered more than a place to teach (and this grudgingly). Yet here was Jairus. He pleaded with me, saying, "My little daughter lies near death. I pray thee, come and heal her so that she may live."

By now I had learned how close was faith to the loss of faith. Both stole silently into the heart. So I understood: The rulers of the synagogue might disapprove of me, but that did not mean I had failed to enter their hearts. Much strengthened, then, by this meeting, I went with Jairus to his house, and a horde came with us. As we passed through the street, I knew that someone had done me an ill. All virtue had suddenly left me. I turned and said, "Who touched my clothes?"

A stranger said: "You see the multitude, yet you ask 'Who touched me?' " But then a woman cried out and fell down before us. "I have had an issue of blood for twelve years," she said, "and have spent all I own on physicians and have only grown worse. Hearing of you, I touched your garment. I thought: 'That shall make me whole.' And it did. I have stopped bleeding."

I could see by her eyes that she spoke the truth. So I was gentle. I told her, "Daughter, go in peace and you will be wholly healed by tomorrow." No sooner had she left, however, than a servant from the house of Jairus came to him and said, "Your daughter lives no longer."

Had the ailing woman taken the virtue I had been gathering to save the child?

But in that instant my Father was with me, and feeling His strength, I turned to this ruler of the synagogue and said, "Jairus, be not afraid. Only believe." I had to hope that the daughter was not dead but resting in that long shadow of sleep that is near to death. For then I might save her. I did not know if I had the power to bring back those who are truly dead.

I recited to myself the words of the prophet Isaiah: "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust."

At the house of Jairus there was much disturbance. Many were weeping and wailing. I entered and said: "The girl is not dead but sleeps."

And I spoke in this manner to calm the air. The dead are best raised in silence; tumult can only drive them further away. So I asked the mourners to leave the house and went with Jairus and his wife to where their daughter was lying. I held her hand and recited words I remembered well from the scroll of the Second Kings, saying: " 'When Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and he prayed unto the Lord. And he lay upon the child and put his mouth upon the child's mouth and his eyes upon the child's eyes and his hands over the boy's hands, and he stretched himself upon the child and the flesh of the child was now warm, and the child sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.'

"And this," I told the father and mother, "having been spoken, need not be done again." For I knew that if I lay upon the girl and she failed to stir, incalculable would be the harm. With the power of the Lord in my hand, I merely touched her and said, "Good daughter, unto thee I say arise." And straightaway she arose and walked. Her parents were astonished, but I told them to give her food, and give it with all the love that they possessed, and this I said because the child, half awake, seemed full of misery that she had returned to the living. Nor did I know whether she had actually died and come back. But I did understand that much unhappiness between husband and wife had laid a pall upon the girl. I could see that she lived in a house of many unclean feelings. No air was sweet in these rooms, and those stale miseries that feed upon themselves were with us. Before I left, I told Jairus and his wife to fast, to pray, and to leave a flower each morning in a small jar by the child's bed.

It had been simple when I told the girl to rise, but there was a weight on me. Much had been drained from my limbs by the woman who touched my garment, and more now by arousing this child who barely wished to live. Had I drawn too deeply upon the powers of the Lord? Would it have been wiser to save His efforts for other matters? I felt a desire to return to Nazareth, and knew I wanted to apologize to my mother for that hour when I had wounded her love.

So I went back to my own country, and my disciples followed, and in Nazareth I spent two days with Mary. Yet I do not know if I soothed her feelings, for how could she forgive me after I had said: "Who is my mother?"