This beautiful gospel is a reflection of our Lord's mercy and the tenderness of His heart. We see that Jesus is moved with pity for this widow in her loss of her only son. And some spiritual writers have reflected that in this scene, Jesus may have been thinking of His own mother, knowing His passion and death, and was touched with pity in thinking of His own mother. But the gospel also just wants us to understand that Jesus cares for us deeply in all our sufferings and trials. And it clearly says that He stepped forward. Jesus always comes towards us in our suffering. He never leaves us or abandons us, but is always near to us, is always near to us.
 And in this act, of course, He's also foreshadowing His own resurrection, that all His miracles are a preparation for His victory over death and sin in His triumphant resurrection. And so the gospel just reminds us that in our own sufferings, our own trials, we must never be discouraged. We must never lose hope or the sense of God's assistance and presence in our lives.
 Many times I've heard people say, 'Why did God abandon me? Why did God leave me? Why did God permit this to happen to me?' That in all sufferings, God is close to us. And in that suffering, conforming us to Christ and giving us His assistance to walk with faith, to walk with courage, to walk with trust, to walk with trust.
 Today we honor in the liturgies, St. Cornelius and St. Cyprian. St. Cornelius was the 21st Pope and St. Cyprian was a Bishop of Carthage. They lived in a time of great persecution, which the Church was being persecuted violently. And at that time, when you were elected Pope, it was sure that your reign would be short because of such violent persecution against the faith.
 One of the interesting or one of the important things that St. Cornelius did was that he, there was a debate at that time of Christians who had apostatized during the persecutions. That time, because the persecutions were so violent and so frequent, Christians would leave the faith to avoid being put to death. They would leave the faith and it was questioned, could the Church welcome these people back into the fold of the Church if they had abandoned the Church and apostatized? And many had thought that no, the Church couldn't welcome these apostates back. But St. Cornelius was guided differently by the Holy Spirit that yes, they could come back into the Church with adequate, with penance, with sincere sorrow and penance. And so he made that proclamation that those who had apostatized could come back into the fold of the Church.
 And St. Cyprian, as I mentioned, he was the first bishop martyred in Africa, the first bishop to be martyred in Africa. He was beheaded for his faith and love for Jesus Christ. One of his beautiful quotes is, 'One cannot have God as His father if he does not have the Church as his mother.' Or recognizing the significance of the Church as the body of Christ on earth, in which God provides us with through the sacrifice and the sacramental life of that Church, which was founded by Jesus Christ. One cannot have God as His father if he does not have the mother, the Church as his mother.
 Both these martyrs died very close to each other. They were both friends. St. Cornelius dying in the year 353 and St. Cyprian dying in about 358 in their martyrdom. We can ask them to give us courage to live our faith, the courage of which to live our faith when there is increasing hostility towards Christ, His Church, and His teachings. There will always be those who are offended or reject the teachings of Christ and His Church, but these two saints remind us that we must be courageous in living our faith and being witness to our faith and never being fearful or afraid of persecution or death itself, but that we must proclaim Christ boldly and with courage that His light may continue to shine the world and that these people's hearts may be converted, that they may receive the joy and the gift of God's divine life through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
 May these two martyrs pray for us that we may be courageous in carrying our own crosses and giving courageous witness to Christ in our daily life. In the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen.