July 30, 2024 // Bishop

Christ Can Heal Us, Too, Bishop Tells Youths at Totus Tuus Mass

Joshua Schipper

Video/Digital Content/Graphic Design Producer

Bishop Rhoades celebrated Mass on Monday, July 8, for kids participating in the summer Totus Tuus program as the missionaries began their weeklong stop at St. Jude Parish in Fort Wayne.

He began his homily by asking the kids if they had been listening to the Gospel for the day, to which they collectively responded, “Yes!”

“There were two great miracles that Jesus performed,” Bishop Rhoades said. “He did what to that man’s daughter?” One student responded that Jesus cured her.

“He cured her. He raised her from the dead. She had died,” Bishop Rhoades affirmed. “This is like what Jesus did later at Nazareth with Lazarus. Imagine how sad this official was – we don’t even know his name from the Gospel of Matthew, but we read about this in the Gospel of Mark and Luke, and they do give him [a name]. His name was Jairus.”

“His daughter died, and he was so sad and filled with grief,” Bishop Rhoades said. “But he believed in Jesus. She believed that Jesus had the power to raise her up. So, he went to Jesus and asked Jesus to lay His hands on his daughter to raise her from the dead. And Jesus said He would go.”

Bishop Rhoades said that, as they were walking to the house of Jairus, where his daughter was laying dead, Jesus performed another miracle.

“There was a woman who had been suffering a hemorrhage for 12 years. … So, she had a disease. She had a sickness where she was bleeding a lot, every day. … She suffered a lot for 12 years, and no doctor could help her.”

He continued to explain that people stayed away from the woman because if they touched someone who was suffering hemorrhages, they were considered ritually unclean. They were not allowed in the Temple.

“She didn’t ask Jesus to touch her. She believed so much, all she had to do was touch the tassel on His cloak. … She touched the tassel on His cloak, and the bleeding stopped. She never had hemorrhaging again.”

Jesus turned, saw her, and said to her, “My daughter, your faith has saved you.”

Recounting the rest of the story, Bishop Rhoades said that Jesus continued to Jairus’ house, where mourners played sad songs on flutes before Jesus laid His hands on the young girl and raised her.

“Jesus was able to raise that young girl from the dead, and again, everyone rejoiced. They were amazed,” Bishop Rhoades said. “They were astonished that Jesus had this power, because they really didn’t know that Jesus was God. They thought that He was just an ordinary teacher. But now they saw that He had this superhuman power.”

He finished by saying that the lesson of the Gospel reading is to remind the faithful that if they “remain friends of Jesus, He promised that He would raise us from the dead so that we could live with Him forever in heaven.”

Totus Tuus is an annual diocesan summer ministry led by teams of four college-aged missionaries that aims to inspire the young people of the diocese by challenging them to give themselves to Christ through Mary’s example. Participants in each weeklong parish program receive catechesis, go to Mass, and learn about the love of Jesus both in the classroom and through recreation. Learn more at diocesefwsb.org/totus-tuus.