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Friday, First Week in Ordinary Time


Friday, January 17, 2025

First Week in Ordinary Time

Memorial of Saint Anthony, Abbot 

Heb 4:1-5, 11/Mk 2:1-12 (Lectionary #309)

 

Jesus next took his disciples home with him, to Capernaum, where presumably his mother was. There he started teaching in his own house, and “so many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door.” But he didn’t get a chance to teach for very long.

 

“Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man….and when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him and… let down the mat on which the paralytic lay.” End of teaching.

 

But Jesus did something new. “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’” This shocked some of the local theologians (“scribes”), who were thinking, “This is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

 

Then Jesus worked a miracle explicitly to back up his words: “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’?” And he went one more step. For the first time, he said something identifying about himself: “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” he healed the paralytic.

 

The paralytic did get the healing he wanted, but Jesus made two points: first, he gave priority to spiritual healing, and secondly, he gave evidence he had the power to take away sin as well as sickness, “so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “’We have never seen anything like this!”

 

What do you ask Jesus for most of the time? To protect and provide for you and your family? To forgive your sins so you won’t suffer the consequences of them? Or do you ask mainly for spiritual growth, understanding of his word, motivation to live and love as perfectly as he did? Are you perhaps suffering from a paralysis you don’t recognize? One that keeps you from giving time to Scripture reading and prayer? To teaching your children and others about the person of Jesus? To making your lifestyle bear witness to the values of the Gospel? To ministering to others with love? To establishing the “reign of God” where you live and work by trying to bring about changes?

 

Would you say that the real “Good News” is that Jesus calls you to “stand up,” pick up whatever you’re camped on, and go to wherever you will be “at home” spending yourself loving God and serving others? This is what it means to be free of sin.

 

Initiative: Identify your paralysis. In faith, break out of what is holding you back.




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