“We therefore are the bowels of the Church…”. We’re…. WHAT, again?

In the Gospel reading on this 15th Sunday after Pentecost, Jesus, coming from Capernaum, approaches Nain (a small town near Nazareth) accompanied by His disciples and a large crowd, just as another crowd emerges in a funeral procession.

The dead man is the only son of a widow, so she has lost both her beloved child and probably her principal means of support, thus making her an extremely vulnerable person. Jesus is moved with compassion, misericordia motus, tells her not to weep, touches the bier, and commands the young man to rise. The miracle recalls Elijah’s raising of the widow’s son at Zarephath (1 Kings 17:17–24), but Jesus acts by His own authority. The people consequently acclaim Jesus as a great prophet and declare that God has visited His people.

Let’s get some context.

Capernaum, where Jesus had been before Nain, is on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Nain (modern Nein, also spelled Nayn) is roughly 25 miles southwest, on the northwestern slope of the Hill of Moreh, near the eastern edge of the Jezreel Valley. Depending upon the ancient road followed, the walk may have been some 30 miles. Moreover, Capernaum is some 650 feet below sea level while Nain stands about 700 feet above it.  Jesus and His company would have left Capernaum, climbed through the rugged limestone hills and narrow valleys of Lower Galilee, and then crossed more open agricultural country toward Mount Tabor and the Jezreel plain. Nain itself required a final ascent onto the slope of the Hill of Moreh. All told, 1400 feet of ascent. The distance would probably require a vigorous 10 hours or so to traverse.

Luke 7:11 says in Greek, “Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῇ ἑξῆς …”. That hexes is an adverb meaning “successively, following” and is commonly in the NT as “the day after” (Luke 7:11; 9:37 and Acts 21:1; 25:17; 27:18). The LSJ has “next day” as it is applied to time The KJV says, “And it came to pass the day after…” whereas the RSV says, “Soon afterward…”. The Vulgate says, “Et factum est deinceps…”. Deinceps is “successively”, “next following”. Most English translations provide something like “soon afterwards”, but “the next day” is also represented. Luke choose to connect two healing, that of the “boy, servant” of the Centurion a Capernaum and that of the “boy/son” of the widow at Nain.

It is not unreasonable to think that the miracles presented back-to-back as they are was to stress their close temporal proximity, hence, “the next day”. “The next day”, if correct, would mean that Jesus and his followers were moving quickly. “The next day” implies that they made the march at night, though perhaps they might have started in the early hours of the next day. In any event, we can take from this that Jesus knew that He needed to be in Nain at a certain time.

Thus Luke’s brief “afterwards/the next day he went into a city that is called Naim” compresses a strenuous journey of perhaps ten or twelve hours. Jesus arrived with a large crowd in tow after a ascending march, precisely as the funeral procession was descending from the village toward the rock-cut tombs outside it. The two processions met: one accompanying the Lord of life into the town, the other carrying the dead man out of it. Jesus touches the bier and raises the dead man to life. Touching the bier would have made others ritually impure, but ceremonial defilement cannot pass from the corpse to the Lord of life. Instead, life passes from Christ to the dead man.

I was interested to know what Fathers of the Church commented about this moment so I did a little drilling.

The Fathers saw in the widow an image of Holy Mother Church grieving over children spiritually dead through sin. St. Augustine writes: “The widowed mother rejoiced at the raising again of that young man; of men raised again in spirit day by day does Mother Church rejoice” (s. 48)

On the other hand, St. Ambrose in his Commentary on Luke urges the sinner who seems incapable of weeping sufficiently for himself: “Let mother Church weep for you”. He prayers, preaching, correction, and sacraments surround the spiritually dead until Christ speaks again through His minister, “Young man, I say to thee, arise.” Think of the sacrament of penance.

Let’s look at a snip of Ambrose, where he says this:

92. Etsi grave peccatum est, quod paenitentiae tuae lacrimis ipse lavare non possis, fleat pro te mater ecclesia, quae pro singulis tamquam pro unicis filiis vidua mater intervenit; conpatitur enim quodam spiritali dolore naturae, cum suos liberos letalibus vitiis ad mortem cernit urgueri. Viscera sumus de visceribus eius; sunt enim et spiritalia viscera, quae habet Paulus dicens: ita frater, ego te fruar in domino: refice viscera mea in Christo. Nos ergo viscera ecclesiae sumus, quoniam membra sumus corporis eius, de carne eius et de ossibus eius.

BRUTALLY LITERAL VERSION

Although it is a grave sin that you cannot wash away with the tears of your repentance, let Mother Church weep for you, who intervenes for each one as for her only children, a widowed mother; for she suffers with a certain spiritual pain of nature, when she sees her children being driven to death by deadly vices. We are the bowels of her bowels; for there are also spiritual bowels, which Paul has, saying: So brother, I enjoy you in the Lord: refresh my bowels in Christ (Philemon 20). We therefore are the bowels of the Church, because we are members of her body, of her flesh and of her bones.

Bowels?  What’s up with that?

The Latin viscera, traditionally literally in English as “bowels,” means literally the “inward parts of the body: the entrails, internal organs, or deepest physical interior of a person”. In biblical language the word frequently signifies the innermost seat of tenderness, affection, pity, and mercy.

Modern English ordinarily locates emotion in the “heart.” We say that someone is warm-hearted, broken-hearted, or moved in his heart. Biblical Hebrew used different bodily vocabulary. The heart, (lēb), was often associated with thought, judgment, intention, and decision. The kidneys could signify the hidden conscience or deepest desires. The bowels or inward parts, mēʿîm, were the seat of powerful and tender emotion. Closely related is Hebrew raḥămîm, “mercies” or “compassion.” It is related to reḥem, “womb.” Mercy is therefore imagined as something profoundly interior, instinctive, protective, and even maternal. It is the tenderness felt by a mother for the child whom she has carried within her. Hence Isaiah asks:

“Can a woman forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you” (Isaiah 49:15).

The Greek biblical equivalent is usually splánchna, literally the internal organs. From it comes the verb “splagchnízomai…to be moved in one’s inward parts.” The Gospels repeatedly use this verb for Christ. When He sees the crowds, the widow of Nain, or the hungry multitude, He is “moved with compassion.” The expression suggests more than an intellectual recognition of suffering. Christ is shaken in His deepest interior and moved to act.

The Vulgate frequently renders splánchna with viscera. Thus the Benedictus describes the Incarnation:

Per viscera misericordiae Dei nostri, in quibus visitabit nos oriens ex alto … Through the bowels of mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited us” (Luke 1:78).

Viscera misericordiae means “the deepest inward tenderness of God’s mercy.” God’s mercy springs from the very depths of His love. The expression does not imply that God possesses bodily organs. It is biblical anthropomorphism, bodily language used to reveal the intensity and intimacy of divine compassion. Saint Paul uses the expression with striking intimacy:

Cupiam omnes vos in visceribus Christi Iesu … I long for you all in the bowels of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8).

Paul claims to love the Philippians with Christ’s own inward tenderness. Christ’s compassion has become the interior principle of Paul’s apostolic affection.

This brings me back to this Sunday’s Mass and its readings. Besides Luke 17, we also have Gal 5:25-26; 6:1-10. Remember that chapters and verses were applied much latter, so the end of what we call chapter 5 is seamless with chapter 6.

In this Epistle reading, Saint Paul describes the practical consequences of living by the Holy Ghost: “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

Grace must become visible in conduct, especially in the way Christians treat the faults, burdens, and needs of others. The spiritual man does not delight in exposing a fallen brother. He restores him “in spiritu lenitatis… in the spirit of meekness,” mindful of his own frailty.

St. John Chrysostom observes that, because no man is entirely free from faults, Paul exhorts us “not to scrutinize severely the offenses of others,” but to bear patiently with them, knowing that we shall need the same patience ourselves (cf. s. 6 On Galatians). The Church resembles a building whose stones differ in shape and function, yet each supports the others. Correction, therefore, must arise from charity rather than superiority. St. Augustine explains (tr. io. 17) that we should consider in another’s fault “what might happen to himself,” and then render the assistance we ourselves would hope to receive.

“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ.” Augustine states (ibid.) the principle succinctly: “The law of Christ is love,” and love reaches its fulfillment when Christians carry one another’s burdens.

Such burden-bearing includes admonishing the sinner gently, consoling the sorrowful, supporting the weak, and giving temporal help where it is needed. Paul’s warning should ring in our viscera: “What things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap.” Our habits of thought, speech, and action are seeds cast toward eternity. Weariness in doing good can become spiritually dangerous, since harvest comes only “in due time.”

The Gospel shows the law of Christ made flesh.

At the gate of Naim two processions meet. One follows a dead young man out of the city. The other follows Christ, the Lord of life, into it.

Christ here bears a burden that no human being can carry. He takes upon Himself the mother’s grief and the son’s death.

“Fleat pro te mater ecclesia … let the mother Church weep for you.”

She is waiting and weeping for the fallen, the unconfessed, dead in mortal sin.

Paul’s exhortation and Luke’s miracle reveal the same divine charity. To walk in the Spirit is to join Christ’s procession of life, to bear another’s burden, to restore the fallen without pride, and to sow works of mercy.

The Lord halted the funeral at Naim to bring life from death.

“We therefore are the bowels of the Church…”.

Is there someone you know who needs to be brought back into the arms of the Church?

What can you do about it?

You can start with yourself.

GO TO CONFESSION.