How much faith did it take for an unnamed suffering woman to work her way through the crowd just to get an opportunity to touch the clothing of Jesus so that she would be cured?

She risked much, much more than she thought. She was clearly familiar with Jesus and his working of miracles, though no one has yet sought a healing without coming forward and asking Jesus for his mercy. In a sense, her boldness suggests that she is embarrassed by her affliction and is unwilling to expose herself to him and those around him. This woman has spent the past 12 years believing that she is an unrequited sinner – she is ritually unclean and has been separated from participation in religious, civic and even family rituals. She wants to be clean – but she doesn’t want to add further shame to herself by being rejected by Jesus. She acts out of the self-preservation of her dignity and anonymity, while yet seeking the Lord’s mercy.

We contrast her in this event with the definite boldness of Jairus, a synagogue official, who approaches Jesus with the request to heal his dying 12-year-old daughter, thereby wresting him from the crowd that came to hear him, and rushing him off to his own house instead.

Both knew they needed the assistance of the Lord, and both were desperate in their quest to find the relief from suffering they were seeking.

These two people mirror the ways in which many of us approach Jesus. Some of us, like this woman, prefer to try and sneak up on Jesus and seek his assistance without having to enter into a relationship with him. Perhaps this gives rise to many superstitions that can surround religious rituals and pietistic devotions. We try to circumvent Jesus, perhaps sneak up on him from behind so that possibly he doesn’t find us. But, as with this woman, Jesus seeks us out – he wants to see our faces and hear our voices. He desires that we “tell him the whole truth.”

Often this approach to the Lord is borne of a deep sense of shame or guilt. Some of us are so aggrieved by our sins or overcome with the realization that we have failed to maintain a relationship with the Lord, that when we find the compelling need to cry out to him, we don’t feel worthy to do so, or even know how to do it. This is another struggle that many have.  They are so caught up in their sins or their sense of alienation from the Lord that they feel that their time is up and that they will be rejected.

Others of us are more like Jairus. We demand Jesus’ attention now and expect that he will leave aside what he is doing in order to tend to our needs. We, too, often wait until the last minute, when things are at the bitter end, before our cries go out to the Lord, seeking his mercy and peace. Then, too, there are those voices around us, telling us not to bother the Master. Don’t bother praying, it is of no use, our prayers never get answered anyway. Maybe we feel the situation is too desperate as well.

This synagogue official, too, risked much in coming to Jesus. At a time when many of the rabbis and priests were growing in suspicion of Jesus and his work, Jairus risked their condemnation and perhaps even a loss of his own station in life. Was he, too, being taken in by this Jesus, or is he just so desperate that he is willing to give anything a try?

We can be like that as well. Often requests for prayers for healing come from people who otherwise don’t pray or have a relationship with God. Give prayer a chance, what can it hurt, nothing else is working anyway.

This moment in the ministry of Jesus has much to teach us about how we pray, and how we enter into a relationship with the Lord.

What we learn from this moment in the ministry of Jesus is that the Lord is attentive to us, even as we do our best to avoid him. A simple touch or the act of lifting up our mind to the Lord draws his response and draws us in. We do not know whether or not the woman who reached out to him ever became a disciple, but we know that in her humility and shame, there stood a great faith in the healing power of Jesus Christ. We must never be afraid to reach out to the Lord, for he meets us where we are to draw us ever closer to him.

Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.