Seeking Help, Being Helped, Blocking Help

In today's Gospel, Mark 2: 1-12,  some friends of a paralytic man bring him to the house where Jesus is healing the sick. The crowd has blocked entrance to the house, so the men climb up on the roof, create an opening and lower the paralytic man. "When Jesus saw their faith, he said to him. 'Child, your sins are forgiven." Some scribes who were in the house object and, in their minds, accuse Jesus of blaspheming: "Who but God alone can forgive sins?" Jesus knows what they are thinking and says to them: "Why are you thinking such things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise, pick up your mat and walk'? But that you may  know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth'--he said to the paralytic, 'I say to  you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home'!" 

Who are you, am I, in that scene? The persons who bring their friend to the Lord for healing? the paralytic in  need of Jesus' healing? the scribes who question Jesus' authority? or part of the crowd seeking healing from Jesus?  You or I may be any or all of those persons!

We might ask ourselves the following questions:  What in me, like the roof or the crowd, blocks Jesus from getting to me or me going to Jesus for healing?  From what do I need healing? What keeps me, also, from helping others in need of healing? Am I willing to do whatever it takes to help others or am I one who blocks others from getting the help they need from the Lord and from others? Furthermore, am I one questioning Jesus' authority; or, when God works through another person, am I one who is accusing them of overstepping their authority?

The Lord: Our Allotted Portion and Our Cup

In tomorrow's Entrance Antiphon, we pray: "O Lord, my allotted portion and my cup, you it is who hold fast my lot.  For me the measuring lines have fallen on pleasant sites; fair to me indeed is my inheritance."

That inheritance is not something you and I deserve. The inheritance of life forever with God in heaven is an inheritance for which an immense ransom was paid: the human birth, life, sufferings, death and resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  The Incarnate God poured out his blood, became the sacrificial lamb, for you and me! The "Lord [is our] allotted portion and [our] cup" at the price of Jesus' life and death on the cross.   It is a free gift of God's unconditional love for you and me!

Like Jesus, you and I pass "from death to life" in loving our brothers and sisters (compare tomorrow's first reading, 1 John 3: 11-21).  John reminds us that "[w]hoever does not love remains in death. Everyone who hates his brother [or sister] is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him [her]. The way we came to know love was that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers [sisters]. If someone who has worldly means sees a brother [sister] in need and refuses him [her] compassion, how can the love of God remain in him [her]? Children," John says to us, "let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth."

John puts it on the line for us! And God Himself has written this law of love on everyone's heart. We have no excuses for walking by someone in need and not helping if we have the means to help, whether that be financial means, material means or spiritual/psychological means to make a difference in that person's life by acts of love, by caring, by acting compassionately.

How do you and I measure up to what God is asking of us?

Healing, Forgiveness and Mercy

In today’s Gospel, Matthew  9: 1-8, people bring a paralytic person lying on a stretcher  to Jesus. This person is dependent upon others to bring Him to the Lord.  Jesus sees their faith and says to the paralytic: “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.”  Bystanders are disturbed and, in their thoughts, are accusing Jesus of blasphemy, that is of profanity, sacrilege, wickedness, and/or irreverence.  What an accusation. Jesus knows their thoughts and asks them: “Who do you harbor evil thoughts?”  To prove a point of His authority, he says to the paralytic: “Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.”

You and I are both the paralytic and a bystander. We are paralyzed by our sinfulness, our selfishness, our pride, our judgments against others and other sinful behaviors and attitudes.  Our unresolved hurts and angers towards persons who harmed us throughout our lives, easily and many times unknowingly,  blocks our ability to rise to new life and new opportunities to be a source of new life deeper trust, and renewed faith for others.  As bystanders, we are prone to judging others, not helping them, empowering them or ourselves to incarnate God in our midst as Jesus did.

Lord, I bring to you my own paralysis, my own evil thoughts and ask for healing.

“Courage,” Dorothy Ann (insert your name), your sins are forgiven. Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home” to spread the Good News of your salvation and to be a source of saving graces for others by your work, your faith, your love and your merciful forgiveness of others and yourself on a daily basis."

Choose To Be a Life-giving Person

In the Gospel of today for the 21^st Wed. in Ordinary Time, Mt. 23: 27-32, we again read about Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees, whom Jesus describes as whitened sepulchers, pretty to look at but filthy on the inside. What an indictment!    The “Pharisee” in human nature is that part of us that  is not life-giving to others. It is the part of us that heaps burdens on others, that does not lift a finger to lighten another’s load, that shows no compassion, love, forgiveness; that does not  look for ways to assist the other, for instance, in finding shelter, in improving one’s life, in instilling hope, restoring faith, in becoming more free and in believing in self.

What will I do today, and every day, to help rather than hinder, to encourage rather than frustrate, to lift up rather than tear down, to lighten rather than burden, to instill confidence rather than fear, to bring hope rather than despair.  If I am a person who makes the world a better place, who  brightens rather than darkens  other peoples’  hopes, then I will not hear Jesus say to me:  “You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead…[persons’] bones and every kind of filth.” No, Jesus will say to me: Blessed are you who hear the word of God and observe it (cf  Lk 11:27).

Placing My Trust Rightly

In today’s first reading, James 5: 1-6, St. James has strong words for those who become rich by cheating the poor and refusing to share their wealth to make the world a better place for all peoples The Scriptures do not condemn wealth. What is sinful is taking advantage of the poor, exploiting the poor, denying them just wages and thus jeopardizing their ability to shelter, feed, clothe and educate their families. What is also being condemned is trusting in one’s wealth, putting all one’s energies in accumulating and consuming material goods as gods in themselves upon which their salvation depends. “This,” the psalmist says, “is the way of those whose trust is folly, the end of those contented with their lot: Like sheep they are herded into the nether world; death is their shepherd and the upright rule over them,” in eternity, that is. But even here on earth, living selfishly is hell in itself.

Jesus says to us in Mark 8: 35: “Whoever would save their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for the sake of the gospels’ will save it.” Am I willing to be “broken bread” and “poured-out wine” for others? Am I willing to give service to others, helping the poor and oppressed, addressing injustices, sharing my wealth with the less fortunate? Jesus says to us in today’s Gospel, “Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.” And that reward, for rich and poor alike, is eternal life. “God will redeem me from the power of the nether world by receiving me” (Psalm 49), the psalmist says to each of us.