'Give her something to eat'. Jesus, the Church, serving the sick
Friedrich Overbeck, 1825 [Web Gallery of Art]
Today's gospel, Mark 5:21-43, weaves two different healing stories into one, that of the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years and that of the daughter of Jairus, aged twelve, who had just died.
In the scene below, taken from Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, the director focuses only on the story of the little girl. I don't know if the servant of Jairus, whom the latter addresses as 'Thomas' is meant in Zeffirelli's mind to be the future Apostle already showing the honest directness of the saint often referred to as 'Doubting Thomas', the saint who was to make the most explicit act of faith in the whole Bible, My Lord and my God.
In this scene Jesus immediately leaves what he was doing in order to respond to an emergency. Much of our life is like that.
Zeffirelli retains words of Jesus that we find in the version of St Mark of this incident and in that of St Luke (8:40-46) but not in that of St Matthew (9:18-26): Give her something to eat. There is something wonderfully human about these words. Zeffirelli has Jesus carry the little girl out to her parents and relatives. She would have been very weak after the illness that had led to her death. In my own imagination I can see Jesus standing back and smiling, gently reminding Jairus and his wife in their grateful joy that their daughter was hungry.
In the scene below, taken from Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, the director focuses only on the story of the little girl. I don't know if the servant of Jairus, whom the latter addresses as 'Thomas' is meant in Zeffirelli's mind to be the future Apostle already showing the honest directness of the saint often referred to as 'Doubting Thomas', the saint who was to make the most explicit act of faith in the whole Bible, My Lord and my God.
In this scene Jesus immediately leaves what he was doing in order to respond to an emergency. Much of our life is like that.
Zeffirelli retains words of Jesus that we find in the version of St Mark of this incident and in that of St Luke (8:40-46) but not in that of St Matthew (9:18-26): Give her something to eat. There is something wonderfully human about these words. Zeffirelli has Jesus carry the little girl out to her parents and relatives. She would have been very weak after the illness that had led to her death. In my own imagination I can see Jesus standing back and smiling, gently reminding Jairus and his wife in their grateful joy that their daughter was hungry.
Full post here.
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