4th Pascal Sunday of the Paralytic Acts 9.32-42 Jn 5.1-17
Christ is risen. I suppose that you have listened attentively to
today’s gospel. God invites us, each in our unique lives, to repeat
the 40 years journey of God’s People in the Old Testament from slavery
in Egypt to the Promised Land. Today’s gospel reminds us that, with
our baptism, we started the long journey, and we are almost there, we
are no more far from being healed from the ailment, more precisely
from the paralysis, that after baptism in the waters, continues to
enslave us and prevent us from reaching the freedom of the Promised
Land prepared for us: “thirty-eight years of ailment” is it written
for today’s paralytic. We, as him, have not quite yet in the Promised
Land. We are not yet fully disposed to hear Jesus ask: “Do you want to
be healed?” Like the paralytic we remain with an inner mental world
that reconstructs the social setting around us, filled with
justifications and artificial expectations. We say: “If this one or
that one acted differently in the community, I would immediately be in
the Promised Land and healed from my ailments”. Our own
rationalizations are so prevailing that we don’t realize Jesus is
asking: “Do you want to be healed?” Jesus, in his wonderful mercy, has
power to act beyond the obstacles we interpose quite unconsciously.
Jesus intervenes further, he invites us to act under his direction:
“Rise, take your mat and walk”. Such continued powerful Divine mercies
do not eliminate that rational mindset to which we cling. We let our
social world and worldly attachments to other people and to all sorts
of things separate us from Jesus, we lose track of His Presence, and
only see the crowd of relationships surrounding us. This does not stop
Jesus from coming again with a third initiative. He intervenes more
profoundly saying: “Do not sin, lest your ailment become even worse”.
Even these untiring gratuitous visits of Jesus cannot, of themselves,
free us from the worldly attachments that enslave us. We continue to
be vulnerable to games of those who judge, accuse and condemn others,
even saying to Jesus: “You are violating the Sabbath, your actions are
a scandal, you are doing what is not permitted....” Jesus then
peacefully declares to all who are willing to hear: “breach the gap
left to enter the Promised Land, to enter into the fortieth year, take
a decisive personal choice of opening to two truths that I, Jesus, Son
of God, can reveal. And He says: “Up to now my Father is at work, and
I am at work also.” Our immediate full healing entails reception of
two supernatural truths revealed in unique Divine words, “Up to now my
Father is at work, and I am at work also”. Jesus takes on our human
condition, suffers his Passion and rises from the dead to heal us and
open to us the life of the Divine Persons. Health and the Promised
Land is found if we welcome the life of the Divine Persons revealed by
Jesus with great power. When you stay back from the divine revealed
truths, in fact, you remain outside of reality, you remain in your
inner mentally constructed world, you remain in your ailment, in your
sins, even worse you foster sins in those around you, you foster among
the leaders hostility against Jesus Himself as we see in today’s
Gospel story. You may ask: “What can I do to start welcoming the life
of the Divine Persons revealed by Jesus?” Again and again, open up to
Jesus’ repeated visits, hear Jesus say: “Pray as I pray, saying: “Our
Father who are in Heaven…” Hear Jesus institute the Eucharist saying:
“Do this in memory of me”. Hear Jesus give his mother, the Mother of
God, to take to our home. Today the apostle Peter says to Emmaeus:
“Emmaeus, Jesus heals you” and says to Dorcas-Tabitha lying dead on
her bed: “Tabitha, rise”. Peter is living inside the life of the
Divine Persons. We are not to stay exterior to the spectacular
visitations of Jesus and manifestations of the beginnings of the
Church. The essential is that we choose to let the life of the Divine
Persons nourish our faith: “I believe in the Father Almighty… I
believe in the only begotten Son, who suffers, dies and rises from the
dead and comes again in glory, sends the Holy Spirit…” This is what
we are to hear from Jesus and his angels as we celebrate the Divine
Liturgy. Jesus and his angels transmit nothing other than the life of
the Divine Persons. In our long journey out of slavery, started with
baptism, let us reach the 40th year, let us open to the supernatural
truths by which we enter definitely the Promised Land. Christ is
risen.
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