January 15, 2016 Friday 1st Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading: Heb 4:1–5, 11 Gospel:Mk2:1–12
While Jesus was preaching the Word to them, some people brought a paralyzed man to him. The four men who carried him couldn’t get near Jesus because of the crowd, so they opened the roof above the room where Jesus was and, through the hole, lowered the man on his mat. When Jesus saw the faith of these people, he said to the paralytic, “My son, your sins are forgiven.”
Now, some teachers of the Law who were sitting there wondered within themselves, “How can he speak like this insulting God? Who can forgive sins except God?”
At once Jesus knew through his spirit what they were thinking and asked, “Why do you wonder? Is it easier to say to this paralyzed man: ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say: ‘Rise, take up your mat and walk?’ But now you shall know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”
And he said to the paralytic, “Stand up, take up your mat and go home.” The man rose and, in the sight of all those people, he took up his mat and went out. All of them were astonished and praised God saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
DiGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
Doing a miracle and remitting sins are two actions only God can do. Jesus did both. He cured the paralytic and remitted his sins. The inevitable conclusion would have been that Jesus was God. But the Pharisees preferred to conclude that Jesus blasphemed.
Jesus asked them whether it was easier to forgive the sins of the paralytic or to make him walk. Forgiving sins was blasphemous and carried the punishment of death penalty, while making the paralytic walk required a miracle. They didn’t want to state the obvious and so they kept silent. But their silence became a fitting prelude to Jesus’ final act of disposing the issue. He ordered the paralytic to pick up his mat and walk. Jesus drove the final nail to the Pharisees’ coffin when the paralytic walked as ordered.
The Pharisees were left with no choice but to believe. Unfortunately they were so biased against Jesus that they were no longer free to believe what they saw with their eyes. In “Spenser’s Ireland” Marianne Moore wrote: “You are not free until you have been made captive by supreme belief.” Instead of bowing to the undeniable facts that hinted to Jesus’ divinity, they sought to destroy him.
To be truly free we need to submit ourselves to a belief more superior than the belief our minds can establish. This implies submission to a superior mind. This is only possible through faith, such as the faith of the paralytic. —Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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