HEALING OF THE PARALYTIC: JESUS CAME TO HEAL!!!! (Mk. 2: 3-12)
Wounded, scarred, paralyzed, aching and limping---- all words that describes you and me in our our spiritual state of soul! We are all wounded because of Original Sin and also due to personal sin. Good News! There is a "Healer" and His name is Jesus. He is the "Wounded Healer" and by His wounds we are healed. Let us go to the wounded healer so that will not be "Wounded wounders" but "Wounded healers" in a broken world! Read/meditate Mk. 2:3-12 and admire Jesus' healing presence and power!
1. I am that paralytic! Sin is a form of "moral paralysis". From conception, birth until now my soul has leprosy and paralysis. But there is a healer!
2. THE STRETCHER-BEARERS! Call to mind how many "Stretcher-bearers" God has sent into your life to bring you to Jesus, the Healer. Rewind the film of your life and see these providential persons (Good Samaritans) that God has put on your path, that resulted in your encountering Jesus the Healer! Give thanks!
3 PATIENCE, PERSISTENCE, PERSEVERANCE, POWER! The place where Jesus was teaching was packed! They did not give up! Let us learn not to give up. Remember the words of Vince Lombardi: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Jesus reiterates this saying, "By your patience you will save your souls."
4. CREATIVITY/INGENUITY! Wow! Climbing up on the roof and lowering the man down on a stretcher. How admirable their perseverance, but also their creativity. Where there is a will, there is a way. However, to encounter Jesus no sacrifice should ever be to big!
5. PROPER ORDER OF VALUES! Jesus first heals his sins---- "Your sins are forgiven..." In my life, my soul has infinite value. Your soul is worth more than the whole created universe...(St Thomas Aquinas) You were redeemed not with the blood of goats or calves, or silver or gold, but by the Blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!
6. CRITICS OF JESUS. Jesus is criticized! Let us learn to control our tongue. Remember the words of St. James, "We should be slow to speak and quick to listen..." Read James 3--- the danger of the sins of the tongue.....
7. HEALING! Get up ! Take your mat and go home! Let us ask Jesus to heal us of our paralysis! Let us have recourse to confession which heals us of our spiritual paralysis so we can walk, run, and fly after Jesus! The Christian was made to fly high into the spiritual atmosphere of God's love and holiness. Lord give me these wings!!!!
8. DANGERS! What are persons, places and things that have led me into a paralyzed state in the past? I will make a firm purpose to avoid them---- may God's grace assist me!
9 PARALYZED HUMANITY! Now after you have been healed, place on the "Mat"--- the altar in the Church at Holy Mass, all of those you know and love who indeed are paralyzed, but they are too blind to admit it. Or simply they prefer sickness over health. With the priest. at Mass, lift these loved ones on high during the Consecration at Mass. It is the same Healing Jesus that is Present.
10. MARY, HEALTH OF THE SICK! In Lourdes, France many miracles of healing take place every year. The miraculous waters have healed countless sick bodies. However, the most numerous healings occur in the early evening when Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament is exposed and taken in procession. May Mary's prayers, "Health of the sick" come to our rescue that we will be healed by Jesus in body, mind, heart and soul. Then we can be a Wounded Healer to heal wounded humanity in this wounder world!
