The widow of Nain, all the other widows & women among us are a Good News

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 17 September 2024

I have been searching the internet since last night of images of the widow of Nain whose only son was raised to life by Jesus in today’s gospel. After reading and praying over this scene found only in Luke’s gospel, it struck me differently last night, touching something so deep within me unlike before that I wanted to see how artists portrayed her.

Unfortunately despite the many paintings based on this story by Luke, only a few artists took time to paint with focus and emphasis on the widow of Nain. Despite Luke’s detail in saying that Jesus was moved with pity with her than with the young dead son, artists seemed to have looked more into the whole scene than the persons involved.

Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her and said to her, “Do not weep” (Luke 7:11-13).

What a sorrowful sight it must have been with the widow of Nain burying her only child and son after losing her husband because she had practically lost everything in life!

The widow of Nain could have been a most wonderful subject for any painter or artist as she had melted the heart of Jesus who was prompted to raise to life her dead young son. In fact, this was the only third time Jesus had raised the dead to life in all four gospel accounts as He felt the enormous loss of the widow of Nain which remains so true to every widow these days.

In this brief and lovely story, Jesus reminds us of the special care we must have for widows and widowers who have lost everything in life while at the same time bares to us too the more disheartening aspect about death, of losing a beloved. Especially when it concerns a mother.

The most striking truth I have realized until now since my mother died in May is how she meant everything to me and my siblings that I always say, “iisa lang siyang nawala sa amin pero lahat nawala.”

That’s the pain I feel most hurting inside me. I really could not picture our house without her every morning sweeping its front or watering her orchids or combing her dog. More painful was looking inside our home now so empty without her as I imagined those days she used to feed her aquarium fish named “pitimini” and “fetunia” and other flowers I did not know at all or simply bantering with her myna bird. Whenever I would come home, I still could not look long into her room now occupied by my brother because she’s all I see and feel inside.

The story of Jesus being moved with pity at the widow of Nain proclaims how every woman is a gospel herself, especially mothers who from the very start a part of us. See how the author of Genesis rightly narrated when God decided to create the woman, He said “Let us create a suitable partner for him” (2:18).

Every woman is a part-ner of every man, especially mothers. Our umbilical cords are never cut off from our mom even after birth for our link with her continues even long after she – or us – is gone.

That’s because every woman is everything for each one of us as the Bee Gees sang it so well in one of the scenes in Saturday Night Fever, “more than a woman to me” because

Here in your arms I found my paradise
My only chance for happiness
And if I lose you now, I think I would die
Oh, say you'll always be my baby, we can make it shine
We can take forever, just a minute at a time

More than a woman
More than a woman to me...

During our Mass this morning, I chose to celebrate the Memorial of St. Hildegard von Bingen, a German Benedictine nun who lived over 1000 years ago. She was a mystic and a prolific writer, thinker and spiritual master who was beatified in 1326 but was only canonized in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI who declared her a Doctor of the Church.

Like the other German woman saint, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross or Edith Stein, St. Hildegard’s writings are so deeply true but tenderly expressed that one could feel the woman touch of God. One of her quotes I used in reflecting on the widow of Nain says, “The mystery of God hugs you in its all-encompassing mystery.”

That’s what mothers do best, they hug us with God’s mystery as they themselves are a mystery to us that John Lennon rightly called woman as “the other half of the sky”.

Make a widow, a mother smile today for that would surely go a long, long way to heaven. God bless all the women of the world!