"Child, your sins are forgiven"

In today’s Gospel, Mark 2: 1-12, four men will do whatever it takes to get their paralyzed friend to Jesus.  Nothing will deter them. Jesus says to the paralyzed man: “Child, your sins are forgiven.”  Yesterday we here in NJ and throughout the country witnessed the faith of Whitney Houston’s friends who gave her a faith-filled, four-hour send off, believing that she’d come before Jesus, who would welcome home a young woman who, in her paralyzed emotional self, did not believe that she was good enough, did not ever do well enough, to please her fans. Her friends, and Whitney, I believe, were confident in God’s infinite mercy and knew that Whitney would hear what the physically paralyzed man heard: “Child, your sins are forgiven.”  Do I believe that my sins are forgiven and forgotten, as Isaiah proclaims to us in today’s first reading: “It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more” (Is. 43:25).  What a gift redemption is!  “I have come, Jesus says, that you may have life and have it to the full” (Jn. 10:10).   Eternal life is that ultimate fullness for all who believe in Him.