The Dynamism of Jesus

In the Gospel this week we meet Jesus reaching out to three individuals who were each regarded as 'untouchable' by the religious culture of their time. Jesus asks the tax collector Matthew to join his core team of disciples. Yet we know that tax collectors in the time of Jesus were regarded as collaborators who served the occupying Roman administration.

A desperate woman who had been bleeding for twelve years risks a public flogging by touching the clothes of the Jewish teacher Jesus. She believed that he could heal her in a way that no one else had been able to, and Jesus affirmed her faith and courage. He did not reject or shame her there was simply healing and a new beginning for this woman.      (MORE....) .