Paralysis

I arrived at the Benedictine Center at St. Paul Monastery (where we are for our weekend vocation retreat for UST law students and alum) in time to attend Mass with the Benedictine Community. Today’s Gospel was the healing of the paralytic in St. Mark’s Gospel.

Jesus is teaching in a room so crowded that four people wanting to bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus for healing have to lower him through the roof. Seeing their faith, Jesus told the crippled man that his sins were forgiven. When the “teachers of the Law” were outraged at Jesus’ audacity in forgiving sins, he told the man to rise and walk.

When I’ve prayed with this scene before, I’ve focused on the faith of the friends and on Jesus’ words, but generally not on the sick many himself.

In his sermon, however, the priest suggested that there are many forms of paralysis – spiritual and emotional as well as physical. And Jesus’ action – forgiving the man’s sins and allowing him to walk again – reminds us that he heals them all.

The question for reflection is: in what way am I paralyzed? What are the things that prevent me from walking? (And maybe, just as the parlyzed man needed his friends to bring him before Jesus, there are others in my life that can help me recognize my paralysis.) When I find those things, the next step is, in faith, to bring them before Jesus.

In what way are you paralyzed? Can you bring that paralysis to Jesus and allow him to heal it?

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