Christ heals a woman who is bleeding, depicted by the Catacombs Marcellinus & Peter
A woman was suffering from an haemorrhage.
No one has been able cure him for the last twelve years.
She touched his fringe with her hand as she walked up behind him;
The haemorrhage ceased at that moment.
Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When they all denied it,
Peter said, “Master, it is the crowds round you, pushing.”
But Jesus said, “Somebody touched me. I felt that power had gone out from me.”
The woman, trembling and falling to his feet, explained her discovery in front.
Of all the people, she explained to them why she had touched her and that it was at this moment she became cured.
“My daughter,” he said, “your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
— Luke 8: 42-48
When I heard this Gospel at Mass as a child, I asked my mother what it meant to have “an issue of blood.” I don’t remember her response, but I do remember wondering two things: how could someone bleed for twelve years and not die, and what form did this bleeding take? Are there open sores all over her body? After my parents became friends with the family of hemophiliacs whose children were also infected, I began to think she may have had hemophilia. When I was older, I thought it might be a prolonged period. Now I see that I was that woman who reached out to the hem and touched Christ.
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“There’s no reason to be in pain. Ever,” the ER doctor chided me when I finally agreed to accept pain meds. As I’d explained earlier, it was the late Friday night of Lent. I decided not to take the pain medications sooner so that I could unite with Christ in his sufferings as a voluntary sacrifice.
Why did I return to hospital? Fibroids (noncancerous tumours, leiomyomas and myomas). In my January newsletter, I discussed the problem of fibroids. You can post a comment below. I was hospitalized after an embolization for my anemia and prolonged bleeding. The fibroids were dead on my 3-month-follow-up MRI, which was performed in March. The MRI also showed that the large necrotic fundus fibroid had prolapsed to the lower quadrant, but was still connected to the uterine walls. After the pain increased one Thursday, my gynecologist advised me to go see a friend in the ER. He was expecting him to remove the necrotic tissues. After examining me, and referring to the MRI results, the gynecological doctor gave me some unexpected news. Removing the fibroid could put me in danger of bleeding. He advised a surgical hysterectomy.
In a flash, I found myself back where I started in November of last year when I first discovered my fibroids. As I wept I knew that it was the right time. Other gynecologists agreed.
It was not an urgent matter, so my husband drove home. When I started bleeding the following day, on Friday morning, I contacted the Byzantine Catholic pastor to anoint my wounds and hear me confess. My 5-year-old son, who is not yet a sacrament recipient, also wanted confess. So our priest gave him an individual talk about what he thought were good and bad acts, and blessed him. We drove to the ER with our hearts full of joy. I was admitted for observation pending a laparoscopic robotic-assisted hysterectomy that is scheduled for Holy Monday. To be strong and healthy, I was willing to give up my uterus for the sake of my family.
It was an incredibly spiritual experience to spend Holy Week with Christ and carry my cross, experiencing pain as I remembrance the pain that Christ felt on his body. In the dark of my hospital bed, Christ often suffered with me during these five nights. I found comfort holding my rosary and staring at the crucifix, keeping Christ’s love before my eyes. My experience of the healing effects of suffering can bring us closer to Christ, even allowing us to touch His garment.
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The world tells us, as the ER doctor told me, that there’s never a good reason to be in pain. Faith, and my own faith, teach that pain can be a good thing, and that, when accepted with love, it can unite us as well as those around us. Shusaku, Mark Wahlberg with my daughter and St. Lucy reminded me this throughout Holy Week.
It is through the suffering of Christians that we can embrace and accept our own. Knowing that my body reacts to surgery with prolonged pain, I took Shusaku Endo’s Silence With me to hospital. When I first read it in my Great Books Program in college more than twenty years ago, I was so spiritually disturbed that I sought out the program’s founder, Fr. Joseph Fessio listened to my concerns. I pulled the book off my shelf before heading to the ER to keep my suffering in perspective – these Japanese Christians suffered for their faith, many of them tortured to death for Christ. It was unlikely that I would die or be tortured because of my Christian faith. My pain was going to end. My pain would end. Sebastian Rodrigues may not have been able to see Christ’s face in others, but I was able to. My family and friends, as well as my nurses and doctors who came to see me, all showed Christ. It did not matter that they were Christian, if we had the same political views or not, or whether or not we wore masks (the protocol at my hospital in California changed on the day I underwent surgery to allow children to come and visit, but masks remained optional). Christ is present in all people, and it’s our duty to love them as Christ loves.
Praying and Reading Silence in my “prayer corner” in the hospital room
My second reminder came one night in the hospital when, unable to sleep, I watched Mark Wahlberg’s “Father Stu” on my phone. The basic story of a former boxer turned priest was familiar to me, but I didn’t realize how much suffering the character endured and how gracefully he did so. It reminded me of lines in St. Patrick’s Breastplate:
Christ is in everyone’s heart who has me as a thought
Christ is in every mouth that speaks about me
Christ is in everyone’s eyes who looks at me
Christ is in the ear of every person who hears me
It is our duty to show Christ wherever we are, at any time, and because you never know when someone might be looking.
For example, our children. The day before my surgery, I was visited by my sister-in law and her children, as well as my husband. As my nine-year old daughter was sitting and hiding her face against my side, I asked my husband to go on a short walk with the brothers. My daughter admitted to me, alone, that even though she felt worried, she smiled and acted happy ever since I arrived at the hospital. She did this to not make her brothers worry. As the oldest of the three, she knew that the other brothers would imitate her. So, to avoid them worrying, my daughter feigned a happy disposition. This was a wonderful, kind act. She told me that she was concerned, not because I would die but rather, I could suffer. I hugged her and explained the powerful grace suffering can be, if only we accept it as such, and how I didn’t really mind the pain, because Christ was in it with me. The way we deal with suffering is a powerful example to children, those whom we mentor and to everyone else.
On the morning before my surgery I experienced a strange feeling at 6am. As if she were a bad child telling me, if only I would give my uterus another chance, it might behave. After 45 years of being together I thanked her for raising my beautiful children (one is now in heaven) and explained that we had to separate so I could stay healthy and strong for the sake of my family. Sacrificing my uterus – which is not what I wanted – for the greater good is insignificant in comparison to Christ sacrificing his very body for the greatest good, that we might have new life. Knowing that my small act was occurring in the shadow of Christ’s ultimate act, however, gave me peace. The timing of my hysterectomy was not accidental. God’s providence is usually more subtle, but he is always there.
I had no idea that my body would react to anesthesia. It was a surprise to me to awaken on Holy Monday. ?? Even narcotics couldn’t relieve the pain. God, having prepared my heart, granted me grace to accept my pain, which was a gift of Christ. He kept me near him and allowed me to endure with him in the most holy weeks. As St. Thomas Aquinas observed, our prayers don’t change God; our prayers change us.
We are all human, and we have the ability to derail even in times of prayer, when we believe God is there. Not me. Most women have a laparoscopic robotic-assisted surgery and return to their homes the next day. One person told me about her friend, who was able to walk home after her surgery. I laughed because that wasn’t me. When the surgeon refused to let me go home on Holy Wednesday because I lost my dinner Holy Monday night, it was hard for me to believe that I would be there during the Holy Triduum. I prayed for the return of my peace and the words of a friend came to mind – when I had confessed to her my worry that my health would prevent me from celebrating Easter, after already missing Advent and Christmas because my uterus made me so sick, she encouraged me to imagine a different kind of Easter observation. Then I decided to accept. The surgeon then released me a few hours later. The Holy Triduum would not be missed.
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It was the first time I spent a full day with both of my children. They had been with me the night before, after my husband had attended Holy Thursday Mass to commemorate the institution the Holy Eucharist with them, and while I watched from home. My husband and I spent GoodFriday morning with my five children listening to Saints Alive Radio Theater via the Hallow app. The piece on early Christian martyr St. Lucy that followed the Golden Legend was a real eye-opener. pause. The narrator had just described Lucy’s mother as “suffering from a long, hemorrhagic illness,” a woman who “lived in chronic pain; her stomach would cramp, lightheadedness would overcome her, and she would grow faint.” I told my family I felt certain that Lucy’s mother suffered from anemia due to bleeding uterine fibroids, because this is how I felt last fall. I felt a connection to this woman in the early Christian era, and all other women suffering from this disease without cure.
Lucy is asked by God to bring her sick mother to St. Agatha’s grave, the virgin martyr’s, located beneath an active volcano in Sicily. Lucy and her mom hear about the woman who bled from Luke during the clandestine Mass. I hit pause again. It was then that I remembered the question I asked as a child, and I finally knew the answer because I’d experienced it. She is me. I am the woman.
Because of her faith, Lucy’s mother experiences physical healing, exclaiming to her daughter, “The pain is finally gone… I have been so blind, so selfish in my pain. It was never my intention to give this to God. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve to be healed.” Her physical healing leads to spiritual healing, allowing her, at last, to understand her daughter’s deep, persistent faith.
These women and I, we all reached out to touch the hem of Christ’s garment and he healed us. When I reached out with faith in a hospital room one night, I felt the burden of my life leave. I was still in pain when I got home, but now, I felt purified and grateful. Like St. Lucy’s mother, Christ granted me the grace to understand the faith of someone I loved. It took me losing an organ before I could become whole.
Candlelight Liturgy of Great and Holy Friday at Home with My Youngest
My husband and my older children were present. That night, we turned off all lights and watched Great and Holy Friday at candlelight. Through we are Roman Catholic, we often attend Divine Liturgy at the Byzantine Catholic church; I love the Eastern traditions during Great and Holy Week, in particular the beautiful 2.5-hour liturgy on Friday evening which includes an outdoor procession with the Plashchanitsa, or Christ’s Burial Shroud, in a ritual that is, in essence, Christ’s funeral.
From my computer screen: my daughter venerating the Plashchanitsa (Christ’s Burial Shroud) on Great and Holy Friday as her brother looks on
The Resurrection was celebrated in a four-hour marathon on Saturday, and both of my sons stayed up with me. The pain I felt in my body as we commemorated the pain in Christ’s body kept me close to him, rending it the most profoundly spiritual Holy Triduum I’ve experienced. Imagine an entirely new Holy Triduum.
A procession around the Church to celebrate Pascha
My husband says: Fr. Alexei, in white vestments (right), taking advantage of the pause during the Pascha Liturgy for my daughter to ask how she is feeling
Next morning I awoke pain free before sunrise. It was no coincidence and I wasn’t surprised. It was not a coincidence, nor did I find it surprising. This is an incredibly powerful reminder: if you walk with Christ in his passion and death, accept your cross, be faithful to him, and he’ll take all of your pain away forever one day when you witness the Resurrection.
All of us are members of one body, the Body of Christ. All parts of the human body are affected by the suffering of one member. We all share in the joy and healing of one another. Let’s be Christlike to each other this Easter.
Indeed, he is Risen. He is Risen!
Traditional greetings and responses in Eastern churches during Pascha
