Jesus teaches us this morning how to be a good priest as he encounters the widow of Nain.
Three moments. First, he meets her. Big crowd, everybody weeping and wailing, and somehow he knows she is a widow burying her only son. And the Lord’s heart is moved with pity.
Why was his heart moved? Did he know the lady? Probably not. Then why care about a stranger? Who was she to him? She was his sister….the least of his sisters, and for any and each of his sisters and brothers his Sacred Heart bled.
So the first thing he did was spontaneously love, not as an intellectual exercise or a moral obligation, but as an act of love which broke his heart.
The second moment is his encounter with the poor widow, beginning with a simple word of compassion: “Do not weep.” It's the shortest homily ever preached. No need for weeping here, for God’s mercy is about to transform your world of pain and passion into a glorious foreshadowing of the glories of the resurrection!
And then he does it, in the same way he command each one of us when we lie in the grave at the end of time, he touches the coffin and says to the dead boy: “get up!”
And the merciful love of Jesus raises the dead and restores what was lost to the grieving mother.
And you will do the same thing. You will encounter brothers in pain for whom your heart will ache. You will speak a word of truth to them. And through the sacraments you will celebrate, God will raise them up and restore them. When you break the bread, which is his body. When you smear the anointing that heals. When say words that absolve. God will raise them up at your word and the widows heart will be healed.
