9781644135945

The Time After Pentecost
forgiven thee.” Then He heals him of his palsy: “Arise, take up thy bed and go into thy house.”
And the sick man got up and went home. A similar cure was wrought in us. The Lord has healed
us from the sickness of Original Sin through baptism. Through the sacrament of penance and
the Holy Eucharist, He removes our personal sins and detaches us from the world, freeing us
from the flesh and from evil and indifference. To heal us more perfectly and to free us from innate
weakness, the Lord comes to us in the Mass and in Holy Communion. He will free us from
the consequences of sin when we are eventually raised from the dead. Then He will command
us: “Go into thy house,” our heavenly home, where we shall rejoice with Him for all eternity.
The liturgy rejoices: “I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the
house of the Lord.” At baptism, in the sacrament of penance, and especially in the celebration
of Mass and the reception of Holy Communion we are healed of our sicknesses and
the seed of the eternal resurrection is planted in our body. This is our hope; this is what the
revelation of the Lord Jesus will bring: final salvation, eternal life for soul and body. “He
arose and went into his house”; that is the resurrection of the body and life everlasting in
the home of the Father. “I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the
house of the Lord,” into heaven.
This is a day of thanksgiving, a day on which we seek heaven. We go into the house of the Lord.
“Bring up sacrifices,” the Communion admonishes us. Celebrate the Holy Sacrifice; “come into
His courts.” He Himself comes into His house, the Christian house of worship. “Adore ye the
Lord in His holy court,” which He has built upon our altars. However, the material house of
God is only a symbol and an antechamber. Through the power of the Holy Sacrifice and Holy
Communion the way is opened for us into the house of heaven. “I rejoiced at the things that
were said to me: We shall go [through the power of the Holy Sacrifice and Holy Communion]
into the house of the Lord.”
Although by ourselves we are poor and helpless, although, like the man of the Gospel, we
are sick with the palsy, we have become rich through Christ by being united to Him through
baptism. “Nothing is wanting to you in any grace” for reaching your goal, your eternal home.
“Take up thy bed and go into thy house.”
Prayer
Let the operation of Thy mercy, we beseech Thee, O Lord, direct our hearts; for without Thee
we cannot please Thee. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Monday
Returning from His mission, the Lord has just reached the city of Capharnaum in Galilee. He
is teaching in the house of Simon Peter, and He is surrounded by a dense crowd. The house
is crowded even to the door. “They brought Him one sick of the palsy.” Four men carry him,
but they cannot bring him into the house because of the dense crowd. Their confidence in the
power and goodness of the Lord and their love for the sick man is so great that they lower him
through an opening in the roof (Mk 2:4). Jesus, seeing their faith, says to the man sick of the
palsy, “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.” He also heals him of the bodily sickness and commands
him, “Arise, take up thy bed and go into thy house” (Gospel).
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