Seeing Their Faith

 Mark 2: 1-12

Jesus Forgives and Heals a Paralyzed Man

2 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. ² They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. ³ Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. ⁴ Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. ⁵ When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

⁶ Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ⁷ “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

⁸ Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? ⁹ Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? ¹⁰ But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, ¹¹ “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” ¹² He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

We can just picture the four men carrying the litter with their paralyzed friend trying to angle their way through the doorway to enter the crowded room. Seeing it was not going to work, they carrying their patient to the roof, remove enough tiles to be able to lower him into the room above the heads of the crowd.  What a project, what determination, what love, what faith! Their faith is what moved Jesus not only to heal the man, but above all, and first of all, to forgive his sins. Yes, the people were right to praise God from something they had never seen before.

Catholics are blessed to have the Sacrament of Penance, which assures them that after confessing their sins, they are absolved, given a clean slate, and the opportunity to go and sin no more. If not successful in this, they can always go back, as many times as necessary to ask forgiveness, and are encouraged to do so. With Covid 19 keeping us home bound, we can still approach the Lord and ask his forgiveness, keeping in mind that he sees our faith as he saw the faith of those porters 2,000 years ago.

Bro. Rene