Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity

Matins Lesson: A Homily By St Jerome the Priest

The eighth recorded miracle should have been that which was wrought when a certain ruler, desiring not to be kept out of the mystery of the true Circumcision, besought Christ to recall his daughter to life. But a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood, thrust herself in, and so her cure occupieth the eighth place, for which reason the raising of the ruler’s daughter is postponed and made the ninth in enumeration, even as it is written in the psalms : Then shall the princes come out of Egypt ; the Morian’s land shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. And again (as saith the Apostle) : Blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in ; and so all Israel shall be saved.

So it is that we read: And, behold a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment. In the Gospel according to Luke it is written that the ruler’s daughter was about twelve years of age. Note therefore that this woman, who typifies the Gentiles, had been diseased for the same time that the Jewish nation, typified by the ruler’s daughter, had been living in faith. For we see not clearly the hideousness of evil, until we compare it with good.

This woman with the issue of blood came not to the Lord in a house or in a city, for all such as she were by the Law banished out of cities. Rather, she came to him in the way, as he walked ; so it was that the Lord healed one, even while he was on the road to heal another. Whence also the Apostles said : It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you ; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.

Antiphon on the Benedictus:

For she said within herself, if I may but touch the hem of his garment, * I shall be whole.
　

Collect:

O Lord, we beseech thee, absolve thy people from their offences; that, through thy bountiful goodness, we may all be delivered from the hands of those sins, which by our frailty we have committed. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

Antiphon on the Magnificat:

But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said * Daughter, be of good comfort ; thy faith hath made thee whole, alleluia.