The Gazelle
Our role in the Church is to model ourselves as perfectly after Christ as we can. Naturally, because of our sin and our limits as human beings, we will always fall short unless we work according to the will of Christ. The moment we in the Church begin to try to make her reflect our own wills and our own desires, we will immediately begin to suffer. There is no one who models the role of follower better than Peter, our first Pope, which ultimately makes him the perfect leader for the Church and the perfect example for all his successors. Once a weak and indecisive man, Peter immediately became capable of the same power of Christ the moment he set aside his own desires in order to work for the will of Christ. Most importantly, Peter continued to work as an instrument of Christ until his death, and the Acts of the Apostles is a great example of this.
Today’s first reading gives a phenomenally powerful blueprint for making the Church reflect the will of Christ by uniting it to both the Gospel and the Old Testament. The first detail we hear in today’s reading is that the Church was experiencing a period of peace, which allowed her to build up and walk in the fear of the Lord. There’s actually an explanation here: the Church was able to be built up because her members walked in the fear of the Lord. They could have easily seen their growth as a result of their individual efforts, but Peter reveals to us that they held an ever-present recognition that they were being guided by Christ, which is revealed the moment he heals Aeneas, and says “Jesus Christ heals you.” It is not Peter at work here. But this reading culminates in a story that unites the Church to the Gospel and to the Old Testament. A faithful woman from the Aramaic-speaking town of Joppa has died, and Peter goes to her house. Her name is strikingly profound - Tabitha, although Luke feels it is necessary to give a Greek translation, emphasizing that her name reveals something. In Greek, it is Dorcas, which can be translated to “Gazelle.” The Aramaic name Tabitha sounds like the Aramaic name Talitha, meaning “little girl”. When Jesus brought Jairus’ daughter back to life, we hear one of the few phrases in Aramaic in the Gospels: “Talitha, koum!” meaning, “Little girl, arise!” In this scene, Peter says, “Tabitha, koum!”
The slight distinction between Talitha and Tabitha reveals two things: first, Peter is not Christ, but more importantly, this disciple is not a little girl. She is a grown woman, and her name means “Gazelle”. For anyone who is familiar with Scripture, a gazelle should call to mind the Old Testament book the Song of Songs, romantic literature that reveals the nature of man’s relationship with God. Gazelles are mentioned frequently in this book, but always as a reference to the beloved. As Christ’s beloved and as members of his bride, the Church, we stand with Peter as participants in a new life; with Peter as our head acting in the person of Christ, our Holy Mother Church is no longer the “little girl,” or the Talitha. Our Holy Mother Church is now represented in this moment by the grown woman Tabitha, the “gazelle,” the beloved, with our Holy Father reinvigorating her into life. He can only do so, though, if he works exclusively according to the will of Christ.
Today's Readings:
