After entering a boat, Jesus made the crossing, and came into his own town.

And there people brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic,
“Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.”
At that, some of the scribes said to themselves,
“This man is blaspheming.”
Jesus knew what they were thinking, and said,
"Why do you harbor evil thoughts?
Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’
or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?
But that you may know that the Son of Man
has authority on earth to forgive sins”–
he then said to the paralytic,
“Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.”
He rose and went home.
When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe
and glorified God who had given such authority to men.

(i) Thursday, Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

I have often been struck by the image in today’s gospel reading of people carrying a paralyzed

man to Jesus on a stretcher. He couldn’t make his own way to Jesus in search of healing, so they

carried him. It was an act of love, of care and compassion. There are times in all our lives when,

like the paralytic, we need to be carried by others, even if not physically carried. There comes a

time in our lives when we need the support of others to take us places we cannot reach ourselves.

There are other times when we might find ourselves in the role of the people who carried the

paralytic. We find ourselves in a position of being able to support someone who needs our

support at that time. We help carry them until they can find their own feet. This is the human

story at its best. It is also, of course, the Christian story. It is said in today’s gospel reading that

when people brought the paralytic to Jesus, he saw their faith, ‘seeing their faith’. Underpinning

this act of love was a deep faith. Saint Paul in one of his letters speaks about faith working

through love, or faith expressing itself in love. Genuine faith will always find expression in acts

of loving service. Nothing is said of the faith of the paralytic. Seeing the faith of the people who

carried the paralytic, Jesus then addresses himself to the man himself. It was the faith of others
that brought this man to Jesus. There is an image here of the church. As people of faith, we are

called to bring each other to the Lord. When our own faith is weak, we need the faith of others to

bring us to the Lord, to open us up to the Lord’s presence.

And/Or

(ii) Thursday, Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

When we experience our weakness in one form or another, we often look to others to help carry

us. That is one of the reasons why we ask people to pray for us when we are ill and why people

ask us to pray for them. We look to the faith of others to help carry us. In the gospel reading this

morning, a paralysed man is carried to Jesus by the faith of his friends. The gospel reading says

that when Jesus saw their faith – the faith of those who carried the paralytic – he said to the

paralytic, ‘Courage, my child, your sins are forgiven’, and then went on to heal him of his

paralysis. It was the faith of his friends that opened the paralytic up to the healing presence of

Jesus. We have all known a time in our own lives when we were carried to the Lord by the faith

of others. It was the faith of our parents that carried us to the church for baptism. We begin our

lives as Christians carried by the faith of others. In the course of our lives, we find ourselves still

needing the faith of others to keep our own relationship with the Lord alive. We are always very

interdependent when it comes to our relationship with the Lord. As I grow in faith towards the

Lord, I help others to do so as well. If I grow away from the Lord, I make it more difficult for

others to grow towards him. In a very profound sense, we depend on each other’s faith on the

pilgrimage of life that we share. In that sense our own relationship with the Lord, or lack of it,

while very personal is never purely private; it always impacts on others in so way or other.
And/Or

(iii) Thursday, Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

There are times in life when we need the faith of others to carry us because our own faith is weak

or even non-existent. This is how most of us began our Christian lives. It was the faith of our

parents that carried us to the baptismal font. We had no faith of our own. The faith of others

carried us to the Lord. We find something similar happening in today’s gospel reading. A

paralyzed man is carried to Jesus by the faith of others. The gospel reading says that when the

people brought the paralytic to Jesus, he saw their faith. There is no reference to the faith of the

paralytic. It was the faith of those who carried the paralytic that Jesus responded to. The opening

words of Jesus to the paralytic suggest that, far from being full of faith, he was in need of God’s

forgiveness, ‘Courage, my child, your sins are forgiven’. Having been carried by the faith of

others at the beginning of our Christian lives, there will come a time when we will be called

upon to carry others by our faith. We were initially brought to the Lord by the faith others. As we

grow older, the Lord will often call us to bring others to the Lord by our faith. Faith sends out its

own waves that touche the lives of others. Rather, the Lord works through our faith to bring

others to him. Our faith is never without an impact for good on others. As we grow in our faith,

we expand the opening for the Lord to bring others to him through us.

Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland.
Email: sjtbclontarf@eircom.net or  frmartinhogan@gmail.com

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