Soon afterwards Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.”
Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favourably on his people!” This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.
Pointers for prayer
1. True compassion of one person for another can change a situation. When has the capacity of another person to empathise with you, and feel with you in a situation, made a difference? When has your compassion been a source of comfort and strength to another?
2. After Jesus had visited their town the people in Nain thought: “God has visited his people.” Bring to mind encounters you have had, or events you have attended, that left you with a greater than usual sense of the presence of God in that experience.
3. The miracle is a reminder to us of our belief that Christ has conquered death and because of that our mortal death is not the end. How does this belief affect your attitude towards your own mortality, and to the deaths of significant people in your life?
The Feast of All Souls rarely falls on a Sunday but when it does it takes the place of the readings for that Sunday.
We remember our beloved dead, in love. As we know from personal experience, those who have gone from us have not ceased to be part of our lives. On the contrary, they can be even more intensely part of who we are, more intensely present to us. There is more to this than the psychology of loss. As people of faith, we entrust our beloved dead to the living God, from whom we all came, because to him all are alive. I like very much a sentiment of Edward Schillebeecks OP, in a prayer for the dead:
Father, we cannot believe all they have meant to us is lost forever.
You are their life, now and always.
As often, this story from Luke is one of the best remembered in the Gospels. Partly this is because Luke is such an excellent writer. Perhaps even more, it is because the story touches everyone. Untimely death is known to all of us, whether by illness or accident or sometimes by violence. We would love to be able to say to the bereaved, “do not weep”! But we can say it at another level: Jesus is the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep. This is our faith. He represents the God of the living, “for whom all are alive.” In him, who rose from the dead, our hope of resurrection dawned.