Lenten message from Pope Francis based on Fratelli Tutti No.217

What is important is to create processes of encounter, processes that build a people that can accept differences.


TODAY'S WORD

By


Fr. Aloysius Santiago sdb
Rector and Parish Priest
Don Bosco Shrine
Lingarajapuram, Bangalore

John: 5:6 "When Jesus saw the paralytic lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”


TODAY'S REFLECTION

The paralyzed man in the gospel reading seems to have been very alone in his illness. 

He lay beside a pool in Jerusalem that was believed to have healing properties, if one entered the water after it was disturbed. 

However, this paralyzed man says to Jesus, ‘I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed’. 

There was never anyone around when he needed to be carried. 

There was another paralyzed man in the gospels who was nowhere near as isolated in his illness as this man. 

He had four friends who carried him to Jesus, even to the point of creating a hole in the roof above Jesus to lower the paralytic down, because the crowds around Jesus were too great. 

Illness can be very isolating, especially in these Covid times. 

To be ill without friends is especially isolating. 

However, Jesus entered this man’s isolation, without being invited.

He saw him, knew his situation, went over to him and addressed him directly. 

Having first asked him, ‘Do you want to be well again?’ 

Jesus healed this desperate man of his paralysis, without the need to lower him into the water. 

Jesus befriended him in a manner no one else had. 

We are being reminded that when we feel isolated, because of illness or some other reason, the Lord is always by our side, working to raise us up from whatever we are struggling with.

Jesus’ question to him, ‘Do you want to be well again?’ may seem strange to our ears. 

Yet, perhaps Jesus needed to know if he still had the hope of being cured after being ill for so long. 


RESOLUTION

Let's resolve to have hope and trust in the Lord  knowing that He will always respond to our hopes.

Have a trusting day. Let's continue to uphold the farmer's so that they get justice.