Introduction:
We see it every day on the news—the raw grief of a parent whose child
has died, perhaps in a drive-by shooting or while serving in Afghanistan.
Sometimes the tragedy is tied to an automobile accident. We hear of these
deaths so often that we become numb to the pain. Then comes something like the
shooting in Newton, Connecticut. Parents, friends and neighbors weep.
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a) A Key
to the Reading
Today’s gospel
gives us the story of the raising of the son of the widow of Nain. A look at
the literary context of the 7th chapter of the Gospel of Luke will
help us to understand this episode. The evangelist wishes to show that Jesus
opens the way for us by showing us something of what is new about God as it
comes to us in the proclamation of the Good News. This is how
transformation and openness come about: Jesus listens to the prayer of a
foreigner, a non-Jew (Lk 7:1-10) and raises the son of a widow (Lk
7:11-17) The way in which Jesus reveals the Reign of God comes as a surprise to
the Jewish brethren who were not used to this kind of openness. It is a
surprise also to John the Baptist who sends messengers to ask, Are you the one
who is to come or are we to wait for another (Lk 7:18-30). Jesus mocks
the fickleness of his contemporaries: They are like children sitting in the
market-place and calling to one another, “We played the flute for you, and you
did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.”’(Lk 7:31-35). At the end we
see Jesus’ openness to women (Lk 7:36-50)