He couldn’t have picked a worse time for another miracle. Just onshore, huge crowds, and someone else got to him first—the official whose daughter is “at the point of death.” Emergency, right? But on the way, Jesus stops. Jesus stops the whole caravan to notice, to heal a woman.
I’ve learned a bit of this while accompanying refugees in Chicago; train rides together are almost always as important as the task we’re going to accomplish. It’s about the journey, the people we journey with, and the way we spend our meantimes.
I’m often too busy, though—too busy going from A to Z with my endless task list to see the people around me at B, C or T. I’m not proud of this, but this gospel both challenges and reassures me—after all, in the end, the girl still lives.
How do I spend my meantimes?
—Garrett Gundlach, S.J. is a Jesuit scholastic from the Wisconsin Province. He is engaged in Master of Social Work studies at Loyola University Chicago.