Water that Transforms , Heals and Makes Us One with God

In today’s first reading, Ez 47: 1-9, 12, the prophet is invited by an angel to “the back entrance of the temple of the Lord.”  He sees “water flowing out from beneath the threshold toward the east….  The angel, Ezekiel tells us “had him wade through the water.” At first the water was ankle deep, then up to his knees and finally up to his waist until he was unable to cross it. A river ran through it and anything near the bank of the river flourished and bore fruit. Salt waters, into which the river flowed, were made fresh.

In the Gospel, the ill, the blind, the lame and crippled sought healing in the Bethesda pool.  Whenever the waters in that pool swirled, the first person into the pool was healed.  A man crippled for 38 years never made it to the pool first. Jesus noticed his plight and asked him if he wanted to be made whole. He responded: “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on the way, someone else gets down there before me. Jesus said to him.  ‘Rise, take up your mat, and walk.’”

Jesus also notices our infirmities, that which cripples us mentally, spiritually, socially.  He says to us, as He said to the crippled man:  “Do you want to be well?”  In our case, we need to avail ourselves of the sacraments of reconciliation and of the Eucharist.  We need to “pick up our mat,” that is pick up the Bible and read about God’s promises to those who seek Him (the psalms might be a good place to begin or the Gospel readings). We need to stop the noise around us, become quiet before the Lord for 2, 3, 5 minutes a day, if not longer: “Listen to the stillness; God is at work,” that is, the Living Water within us is swirling to make us whole.   Are we willing to  accept “the angel’s” invitation to wade through those waters that made us new, that  transform us into Christ, that lead us to oneness with God and others, as Jesus and the Father are one with each other and with each of us?