GOSPEL (Matt. IX. 1-8.) At that time, Jesus entering into a boat, passed over the water, and came into his own city. And behold, they brought to him one sick of the palsy lying in a bed. And Jesus seeing their faith, said to the man sick of the palsy: "Be of good heart, son; thy sins are forgiven thee." And behold, some of the Scribes said within themselves: He blasphemeth. And Jesus seeing their thoughts, said: Why do you think evil in your hearts? whether it is easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins (then said he to the man sick of the palsy): Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house. And he arose, and went into his house. And the multitude seeing it feared, and glorified God who had given such power to men.
It tells us about the man in sin(the paralytic), whose friends prayed for him and brought him to Jesus to be freed from the chains of sin. Jesus obliges. The Church continues to this day to forgive us our many sins, and will until the end of time, no matter what non-Catholics say, this is how it is. Jesus said it, I believe it, that settles it!
We will hear about the Jewish leaders, and about their habits. We can compare these words to our leaders, the hierarchy of the Church. To them I say: 'Listen up!' And for us also.
I'm going to let our beloved Abbot Gueranger tell it like he does so beautifully, concerning this Sunday:
'...Our Lord, speaking of the Jewish doctors, said: "All whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do; but according to their works, do ye not: for they say, and do not." Contrariwise to these unworthy guardians of the Law, they that are seated on the chair of doctrine 'should teach, and act conformably to their teaching.' The Abbot Rupert adds, 'let them first do what it is their duty to do, that they may afterwards teach with authority; let them not seek after honors and titles, but make this their one object, to bear on themselves the sins of the people, and to merit to avert the wrath of God from those who are confided to their care.'
'...our Gospel at present this Sunday equally directs our thoughts to the consideration of the superhuman powers of the priesthood, which are the common boon of regenerated humanity. The faithful, whose attention is to be fixed on the right of teaching which is confided to the pastors of the Church, are now invited to meditate upon the prerogative which these same men have of forgiving sins and healing souls. Even if their conduct be in opposition to their teaching, it in no way interferes with the authority of the sacred chair, from which, for the Church and in her name, they dispense the bread of doctrine to her children. Moreover, whatever unworthiness may happen to be in the soul of a priest, it does not lessen the power of the keys which have been put into his hands to open heaven and to shut hell. For it is the Son of Man, Jesus, who,by the priest, be he a saint, or be he a sinner, rids of their sins His brethren and His creatures, whose miseries He has taken upon Himself, and whose crimes He has atoned for by His Blood.
Notice that Christ did not heal the man sick of the palsy until He had forgiven him his sins, by this He wished to teach us, that sins are often the cause of sicknesses and other evils, by which we are visited, and which God would remove from us if we were truly repentant. This doctrine Jesus confirmed, when He said to the man, who had been sick for thirty-eight years: Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee. (John V. 14.) Would that this were considered by those who so often impetuously demand of God to be freed from their evils, but do not intend to free themselves from their sins, which are the cause of these evils, by a sincere repentance.
The miracle of the cure of the paralytic, which gave an occasion to Jesus of declaring His power of forgiving sins inasmuch as He was Son of Man, has always been especially dear to the Church...From the very beginning of Christianity, heretics had risen up denying that the Church had the power, which her divine Head gave her, of remitting sin. Such false teaching would irretrievably condemn to spiritual death an immense number of Christians, who, unhappily, had fallen after their Baptism, but who, according to Catholic dogma, might be restored to grace by the sacrament of Penance. With what energy, then, would our mother the Church defend the remedy which gives life to her children! She uttered her anathemas upon, and drove from her communion, those pharisees of the new law, who, like their Jewish predecessors, refused to acknowledge the infinite mercy and universality of the great mystery of the Redemption.
Like to her divine Master, who had worked under the eyes of the scribes, His contradictors, the Church, too, in proof of her consoling doctrine, had worked an undeniable and visible miracle in the presence of the false teachers; and yet she had failed to convince them of the reality of the miracle of sanctification and grace invisibly wrought by her words of remission and pardon. The outward cure of the paralytic was both the image and the proof of the cure of his soul, which previously had been in a state of moral paralysis; but he himself represented another sufferer; the human race, which for ages had been a victim to the palsy of sin. Our Lord had already left the earth, when the faith of the Apostles achieved this, their first prodigy, of bringing to the Church the world grown old in its infirmity. Finding that the human race was docile to the teaching of the divine messengers, and was already an imitator of their faith, the Church spoke as a mother, and said: 'Be of good heart, son! thy sins are forgiven thee!' At once, to the astonishment of the philosophers and skeptics, and to the confusion of hell, the world rose up from its long and deep humiliation; and, to prove how thoroughly his strength had been restored to him, he was seen carrying on his shoulders, by the labor of penance and the mastery over his passions, the bed of his old exhaustion and feebleness, on which pride, lust, and covetousness had so long held him. From that time forward, complying with the word of Jesus, which was also said to him by the Church, he has been going on towards his house, which is heaven, where eternal joy awaits him! And the angels, beholding such a spectacle of conversion and holiness, are in amazement, and sing glory to God, who gave such power to men.
Let us also give thanks to Jesus, whose marvelous dower, which is the Blood He shed for His bride, suffices to satisfy, through all ages, the claims of eternal justice. It was at Easter time that we saw our Lord instituting the great Sacrament, which thus in one instant restores the sinner to life and strength. But how doubly wonderful does its power seem, when we see it working in these times of effeminacy and of well-nigh universal ruin! Iniquity abounds; crimes are multiplied; and yet, the life-restoring pool, kept full by the sacred stream which flows from the open side of our crucified Lord, is ever absorbing and removing, as often as we permit it, and without leaving one single vestige of them, those mountains of sins, those hideous treasures of iniquity which had been amassed, during long years, by the united agency of the devil, the world, and man himself.'
Those who brought this sick man to Christ, give us a touching example of how we should take care of the sick and help them according to our ability. Christ was so well pleased with their faith and charity, that He cured the man sick of the palsy, and forgave him his sins. Hence we learn how we might assist many who are diseased in their soul, if we would lead them to God by confiding prayer, by urgent admonitions, or by good example.
How great, O Jesus! is Thy love and mercy towards poor sinners, since Thou not only forgave the sins of the man sick of the palsy, but calling him son, didst console and heal him! This Thy love encourages me to beg of Thee the grace, that we may rise from our bed of sins by true penance, amend our life, and through the ways of Thy commandments enter the house of eternal happiness.
Pope St. Clement, disciple and successor of St. Peter, as early as the first century, wrote to the faithful in Corinth, praying them, for God's sake, to confess their sins, that the priests of the Lord might absolve them. St. Cyprian uses almost the same words. Tertullian, in the second century, admonishes Christians of the necessity of an entire confession of their sins, and compares one who conceals his sins in the Sacrament of Penance to a patient who, through shame, refuses to confide in his physician, preferring rather to die of some secret malady than to overcome this false shame and be healed. Irenaeus, Basil, Origen, Leo, Chrysostom and Augustine speak in the same manner regarding confession and the frequent recourse to it. Had not this Sacrament been instituted by Christ, it would have been known precisely at what period Christians began to confess. As it is, no one can fix a time--a proof that the practice existed from the very beginning. And, my dear brethren, we have great reason to praise God and to marvel that He entrusted this wonderful power, not to angels, but to the bishops and priests of His Church, who are but men. (Protestants do NOT have this luxury. They say we must go to God alone. However, if God (Jesus) says He gave this power to the Apostles and to the priests of the Church, who are they to deny it? They are denying Scripture itself! As Mary herself, in one of the few verses assigned to her, says, "Do whatever He tells you.")
Oh, sinner, pray to God that He may restore that heart, so deaf to the pleadings of Divine grace; and direct the energy of that will, now so depraved, to do His holy will. Sometimes you are sensible of the miserable state into which you have fallen; and it may be the last call which God, in His infinite goodness, will give you! Oh, let not His mercy he unheeded!
Let us give thanks to Almighty God with these words of the Post-communion of this Sunday:
'Being fed, O Lord, with the sacred gift, we give Thee thanks, humbly beseeching thy mercy, that Thou wouldst make us worthy of its reception.'
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