Thursday of 13th Week in Ordinary Time, Yr. II: reflection
THEME: YOU TOO CAN STAND UP AGAIN AND WALK
Reading: Mt
9:1-8
Dear
friends in Christ, in today’s gospel reading, a paralyzed man was brought to
Jesus for healing, and He healed him. When one is paralyzed, he will suffer the
loss of movement or sensation in a part or all parts of the body; the members
of his body cease to function properly. For example, his hands and legs can no
longer move properly or may not move at all. Such was the case with the man
Jesus healed. That was why the man couldn’t come to Jesus on his own, but had
to be brought by others.
Did you
observe that instead of going straight to heal his physical paralysis for which
he was brought, Jesus decided to first address an aspect of his life that was
hidden from the eyes of other people, his spiritual life? He first said to him,
“your sins are forgiven,” then, He added later, “rise, take your bed and go
home.”
The action
of Jesus suggested that the man was not only physically paralyzed, he was also
spiritual paralyzed by sin. Perhaps, it was his spiritual paralysis that kept
him in that condition of physical paralysis. Thus, to give him total freedom
from physical paralysis, his spiritual paralysis needed to be dealt with, and
that was what Jesus did first.
Dear
friends, sin paralyzes us spiritually, making the spiritual part of our lives
to malfunction. When our spiritual nature malfunctions, our physical nature struggles
to deal with problems of nature; it is overwhelmed by natural exigencies and
cannot rise and fight back. To win the battle of the physical nature, we must
heal our spiritual nature, liberating it from whatever paralysis (sin) that has
disrupted its normal function. If we do this, we too can stand up again and
walk away from our numerous physical paralyses.
May the
healing hands of Jesus free you from whatever is holding you down. Amen.
Fr Isaac
Chima.
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