4th Week of Lent 2022 - Tuesday - Good versus evil

 

Yesterday, we reflected upon the second of the seven miracles stories in St. John’s Gospel: the healing of the royal official’s son. We also noted how St. John often includes people’s reactions to those miracles: some are amazed by Jesus, some come to believe, some fail to make that leap of faith or they walk away grumbling because his subsequent teachings are unappealing or deemed too difficult.

What was the reaction to the miracle detailed in today’s Gospel of the paralyzed man. On one hand, you have the obedience and witness of the man himself. He gets up and walks just as Jesus told him to do. When asked about the miracle, he testifies to the source of the healing. He is certainly a model for all of us. We are to testify to the healing we have received through Jesus Christ. 

For Jesus has healed our paralysis—our spiritual paralysis. Without the healing each of us have received in the pool of baptism, we would be paralyzed of walking toward heaven, walking in righteousness, walking in truth, walking up to the altar of God, God who is the source of our joy. Jesus has changed my life, and I know he has changed yours as well. And when people ask us about what animates our lives. We need to point to Him. You know what gets me up in the morning? The desire to serve my Lord who has healed me. We should not be timid about our faith.

So the Gospel contains this wonderful reaction of obedience and witness. But there was another reaction—that of the Jews, the religious authorities of Jerusalem. Their hearts were so far from God that they could not, or would not, recognize the goodness of what Jesus did. This man had been paralyzed for 38 years. Most of us cannot imagine what his life was like. The inability to work to support a family. The boredom. The abandonment. And the religious leaders criticize Jesus, when none of them lifted a finger to help the man into the pool. 

And for healing this man, freeing this man, liberating this man, restoring his hopes, helping him to know the love of God, the religious leaders, St. John tells us, begin to persecute Jesus. That was their response. “Goodness made itself known, and we can’t let that happen again.” Do you see how the powers of evil were rampant in the hearts of Jesus’ enemies?

As we near Holy Week, this reading helps us to understand the conflict that will reach its crescendo on Good Friday: the goodness of God—the life and the healing and moral and spiritual freedom God wants for us—versus the evil that takes root in the hearts—the coldness of the hell we make for ourselves when we turn away from God and seek to selfishly control and manipulate our fellow man.

Lent: it helps us to be open to the healing Jesus wants to work in our lives, it strengthens us to have courage to lead others to Jesus. It also helps us to repent and do penance for those time, when like those religious authorities, have coldly closed ourselves to the goodness of God. 

- - - - - -  

For an increase in faith for the catechumens and candidates who approach the sacraments of initiation in the coming Paschal Solemnity.

That the Church might be delivered and protected from all evil—all coldness toward good, all indifference to life, all selfishness, error, heresy, schism, and unbelief.

For strength to resist temptation, and the humility to sincerely repent of sin.

That through fasting and self-denial, we may be ever more conformed to Christ.

That those in need may find assist in the charity of faithful Christians and that peace and security may be firmly established in all places.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Mercifully hear, O Lord, the prayers of your Church and turn with compassion to the hearts that bow before you, that those you make sharers in your divine mystery may always benefit from your assistance.