Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

We are used to Jesus performing dramatic miracles, but certainly less familiar with dramatic means to His miracles. When the friends of the paralytic man opened up the roof and lowered him on a stretcher into the home where Jesus’ was, it could have seemed tactless, overbearing, and for the paralytic himself, embarrassing. The Lord was in no way deterred and both forgive his sins and cured him. The story instructs us about how we rely on both the Church and Christ.

Firstly, while we are ultimately responsible for our own salvation, it is within the context of the Church. The Church will aid us because we can only get so far by ourselves – we are all, in a sense, paralyzed. We entrust ourselves to the prayers of others for conversion and sanctification. Sometimes the community of faith also needs to keep us accountable and bring us to Jesus in reality and not in our own safe fantasy of Christ.

Secondly, we must not think of Jesus primarily as an ethical teacher. He is the one who heals us—the only one who can truly cure us. There are miraculous and instantaneous experiences that many in the Church have had when they ask the Lord to remove a deep-seated sin. Other times it takes years of perseverance following after Christ to be healed. In either case, the relationship with Christ, supported by the Church, is essential for the forgiveness of sins and the freedom of the children of God.

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB