Saint Stanislaus Papczynski — The Life and Writings

with the prophet and with God, because when elijah was a guest in her home her child had taken ill and had died in her arms. elijah says to her: “Give me your son” (1 kings 17:19). What he says is significant. His words tell us something about God’s response to our own death, however it may come about. He does not say: “Hold on to it; sort it out yourself !” Instead, he says: “Give it to me”. And indeed the prophet takes the child and carries him to the upper room, and there, by himself, in prayer “fights with God,” pointing out to him the absurdity of that death. The Lord heard the voice of elijah, for it was in fact he, God, who spoke and acted in the person of the prophet. It was God who, speaking through elijah, told the woman: “Give me your son.” And now it was God who gave the child back alive to his mother. God’s tenderness is fully revealed in Jesus. We heard in the Gospel (Lk 7:11-17) of the “great compassion” (v. 13) which Jesus felt for the widow of Nain in Galilee, who was accompanying her only son, a mere adolescent, to his burial. Jesus draws close, touches the bier, stops the funeral procession, andmust have ca- ressed that poor mother’s face bathed in tears. “Do not weep,” he says to her (Lk 7:13), as [if] to say: “Giveme your son.” Jesus asks to takes [sic] our death upon himself, to free us from it and to re- store our life. The young man then awoke as if from a deep sleep and began to speak. Jesus “gave him to his mother” (v. 15). Jesus is no wizard! It is God’s tenderness incarnate; the Father’s im- mense compassion is at work in Jesus. The experience of the Apostle Paul was also a kind of res- urrection. From a fierce enemy and persecutor of Christians, he became a witness and herald of the Gospel (cf. Gal 1:13-17). This radical change was not his own work, but a gift of God’s mercy. God “chose” him and “called him by his grace.” “In him,” God desired to reveal his Son, so that Paul might proclaim Christ among the Gentiles (vv. 15-16). Paul says that God the Father was pleased to reveal his Son not only to him, but in him, impressing as it were in his own person, flesh and spirit, the death and resurrection of Christ. As a result, the Apostle was not only to be a messenger, but above all a witness. Documents and Homilies from His Canonization 185