Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time (February 19^th 2012)        

Mark 2:1-12

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Questions raised by this passage from the Gospel

1 Do I believe that faith is an individual relationship between God and me? Or is it something that needs to be cultivated in me by others?

2. In what way can I become a "stretcher-bearer" for others, leading them to the Lord?

3. When I approach the Lord, am I more preoccupied with the healing of my physical ailments, or with the healing of my spiritual ills?

4. What is more important: to heal someone's illness or to forgive their sins?

Faith is not an individual thing. We need others to bring us to the Lord

The Gospel story presents us with the image of a sick man being carried by others to the Lord. Being led to the Lord by others is a necessary element in the life of faith. Relationship with God is not a purely individual thing between him and me. Instead, it is necessary that we be carried to the Lord by people who have more faith than we do. In the Gospel passage, when the people strip the roof in order to lower the paralytic inside, Jesus takes into consideration their faith, not the faith of the paralytic himself. We are not saved because of the level of personal relationship that we have with the Lord. On the contrary, we have need of the faith of ours to bring our salvation to fulfilment. We receive that faith from others in the first place. Often, our faith life is at a standstill and we need someone else to bring us forward. We need to be carried on someone else's shoulders for part of the journey. The dream of autonomy in the faith is an illusion that takes on nowhere. We all need stretcher-bearers to bring us closer to the Lord, and we all need to become stretcher-bearers for others one day. We must develop a faith that will be capable of illuminating the unhappy lives of others who do not have the courage to go on by themselves.

Sometimes the path that leads to healing can be tortuous

The paralytic was carried by four stretcher-bearers and entered the house in unusual circumstances. It was impossible to enter by the door, so the roof had to be dismantled before he could be lowered down. Often it is the case that it is difficult to enter by the door. Sometimes the normal channels are not accessible and it is not straightforward to come to the stage of being healed. We have need of someone who knows an alternative way and who is willing to carry us. The paralytic was lowered from a height and risked being dropped. This story highlights the level of support that the stretcher-bearers would have had to give to the sick man. It is essential to trust the one who carries us to the Lord. It is often necessary to expend great effort to bring someone to the faith. Often we can be closed to Christ and it may be necessary for others to discover an unusual way to bring us to him.

A healthy spirit and a sick body is better than a healthy body and a sick spirit

When the man is placed in the centre of the room, Jesus looks at him and says, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Jesus sees the faith of the ones who brought the sick man in. Seeing that faith, he goes to the heart of the problem, which is not the physical healing of the man. The heart of the matter is his interior healing. To physically heal a man who is sick within would be to deceive him terribly. To have a healthy body and a diseased spirit is much more dangerous than having a sick body and a healthy spirit. Saint Clare of Assisi lived for many years as a paralytic, unable to rise from bed, and during that time she did incredible good for the whole world. Blessed John Paul II possibly did more evangelisation in his last years, with a sick body but a spirit full of light, than he did when he was fully mobile and able to go wherever he wanted.

What is more important: to heal someone's illness or to forgive their sins?

No-one would wish to trivialise the significance of physical suffering. Jesus can heal physical suffering, but his priority is to heal the interior. It is illness of the spirit that is the origin of much suffering in the world. In the Gospel passage, Jesus proclaims that the man is forgiven, because the healing of the heart is achieved by forgiveness. What makes a man healthy is the forgiveness of his sins. No-one can offer this kind of treatment but God alone. Psychotherapeutic techniques can rearrange the elements of a person's mental life, but they cannot dissolve sin. Sin and evil can only be cured by God. God knows how to create and he knows how to regenerate. Only he knows how to give new life.

Only God can treat the illnesses of the soul

This, in fact, is the reason why the scribes are scandalized. "Who can forgive sin but God alone?" they ask. "This man is blaspheming!" In reality these scribes are stating something that is perfectly true. They are outraged by the fact that Jesus assumes a role that is reserved for God only. Their outrage would be justified if, in that moment, they were not in the presence of the Son of God himself. In the rabbinic tradition, not even the Messiah himself was considered to have the power to forgive sins. The Messiah, according to that tradition, was expected to be a man, elected by God, with the role of saving his people. Here, the scribes found themselves in the presence of something much greater, the precious Son of God.

Jesus' healing of the paralytic reveals the wonderful news that sin is not the last word

Jesus is capable of healing the paralytic and is capable of forgiving sins. This is the unexpected good news that is revealed to the scribes and to all present. To show that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, he says to the paralytic, "Get up and walk". This act of Jesus bears witness to the wonderful news that sin is not the last word. It is not true that our mistakes remain encrusted deep in our essence and cannot be eliminated. A marriage that is in crisis because of errors made in the past can be made healthy. If it is true that a man can be healed of physical paralysis, then it is true that a man can be healed of his sin. This fact has become the constant miracle of the Christian life, the miracle of conversion. Throughout Christian history we have had the constant miracle of persons being carried to the Lord, who stand up and become capable of carrying others.

            We must allow the faith of the church to carry us and guide us. We must allow the faith of these "stretcher-bearers" to lead us to these experiences of healing and pardon. There is an entire school of saints, a multitude of wonderful Christians, a long history of the faith that demonstrates that God can dissolve sin in the heart of humanity. No matter how grave the sin we may have committed, no matter how ugly or shameful our deeds, God's power is infinitely greater.