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Gospel: Luke 5: 17-26
One day as Jesus was teaching,
Pharisees and teachers of the law,
who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem,
were sitting there,
and the power of the Lord was with him for healing.
And some men brought on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed;
they were trying to bring him in and set him in his presence.
But not finding a way to bring him in because of the crowd,
they went up on the roof
and lowered him on the stretcher through the tiles
into the middle in front of Jesus.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said,
“As for you, your sins are forgiven.”
Then the scribes and Pharisees began to ask themselves,
“Who is this who speaks blasphemies?
Who but God alone can forgive sins?”
Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them in reply,
“What are you thinking in your hearts?
Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’
or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?
But that you may know
that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”–
he said to the one who was paralyzed,
“I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.”
He stood up immediately before them,
picked up what he had been lying on,
and went home, glorifying God.
Then astonishment seized them all and they glorified God,
and, struck with awe, they said,
“We have seen incredible things today.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Many of you know that, over the course of my priestly ministry, I’ve witnessed a number of miraculous healings through the Anointing of the Sick.
Several people have literally come back from the dead. A nine-year-old boy was going blind and regained his sight. A woman’s lungs were deteriorating and were suddenly restored.
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Often, I read this Gospel passage prior to administering the Sacrament to remind people of two things: Jesus, can in fact bring physical healing to people, but this is not what is foremost in his heart.
What matters to the Lord more than the physical state of our bodies is the state of our soul.
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In today’s Gospel, a paralyzed man is brought to the feet of Jesus by his friends. The Gospel stresses that he was paralyzed. Not that he was a “sinner,” but “paralyzed.” It’s why his friends went to such great lengths to bring him to Jesus.
They literally pull him on a stretcher onto a neighbor’s roof, rip the thatched roof open, and lower him down to the feet of the Lord.
But the Lord just looks at him as he’s lying on the floor and says first, not, “Rise and walk.” But, “Your sins are forgiven.”
What Jesus sees first is not what everyone else sees. The crowd sees a man with paralysis. Jesus sees a soul in need of salvation.
But in order for them to believe that he can, in fact, save this man, Jesus says to him, “Your sins are forgiven…now rise and walk.”
The physical healing taught people that Jesus could do something greater – forgive sins and save souls.
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It’s easy for us to get caught up in the physical world – the state of our bodies, the state of our finances, the trajectory of our career, our image, and so on. But what matters to the Lord more than anything is the state of our soul.
Tomorrow evening at 7 pm each of us has the opportunity to experience a miracle we all need on occasion, the renewal our spiritual lives through another Sacrament, confession. Allow the Lord to say to you what he said to this man, “Your sins are forgiven…Now rise and walk.”
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Image credits: (1) I Need a Miracle, Oak Hill Church (2) What Should Doctors Do When We Experience a Miracle? Opinion, NYTimes (3) Conditions for a Miracle, Kairos Ministries