Daily Gospel Reflection – Thursday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Bishop Robert Barron
June 30,2022 Thursday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Mt 9:1-8
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.
*United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, the Lord heals a paralytic after first forgiving his sins. Jesus’ initial words to this paralyzed man are, "Your sins are forgiven." Why does God forgive our sins? Because he wants us alive, he wants us moving, he wants us in action, realizing what we can be.
Jesus comes to liberate us for deeper life, to open a new future to us. Sin is a refusal to live according to God’s purposes and desires. Our obsession with past sins paralyzes us. God is opposed to this obsession with the past, because it renders us unable to move.
I can brood over my past sins to such a degree that I become finally paralyzed, unable to move. "Your sins are forgiven" is another way of saying, "Don’t be paralyzed by sins that you undoubtedly worry about far more than God does."
After saying your sins are forgiven, Jesus says, "Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home." That’s the way it works: first comes the forgiveness of sins, and that is a liberating power in us. Now I can live for the future.
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