Readings
Isaiah 43:18-19, 21-22, 24-25
Psalms 41:2-5, 13-14
2 Corinthians 1:18-22
Mark 2:1-12 (see also “Who is the Son of Man?”)
Chants
Raised to Serve
Today’s Gospel makes explicit what has been implied in preceeding weeks. Namely, that in healing the sick and casting out demons, Jesus is manifesting God’s forgiveness of His people’s sins.
They had wearied of God, refused to call on His name, we hear in today’s First Reading. Despite that, God promised to remember their sins no more.
Sin is often equated with sickness in Scripture (see Psalm 103:3). And today’s Psalm reads like a foretelling of the Gospel scene—the man is helped on his sickbed, healed of his sins, and made able to stand before the Lord forever.
The scribes know that God alone can forgive sins. That’s why they accuse Jesus of blasphemy. He appears to be claiming equality with God. But the Gospel today turns on this recognition. The scene marks the first time in the gospels that Jesus commends the faith of a person or persons who come to Him (see Matthew 9:2; Luke 5:20).
With the eyes of faith, the paralytic and his friends can see what the scribes cannot—Jesus’ divine identity. He reveals himself as the “Son of Man”—alluding to the mysterious heavenly figure the prophet Daniel saw receive kingship over all the earth (see Daniel 7:13-14).
His retort to the scribes even echoes what God said to Pharaoh when He sent plagues upon Egypt: “That you may know that I am the Lord” (see Exodus 8:18; 9:14).
As Paul says in today’s Epistle, Jesus is God’s great Amen. Amen means “so be it.” In Jesus, God has said, “So be it,” fulfilling all His promises throughout salvation history. We are the new people He formed to announce His praise. He calls each of us what Jesus calls the paralytic—His child (see 2 Corinthians 6:18).
But do we share this man’s faith? To what lengths are we willing to go to encounter Jesus? How much are we willing to sacrifice so that our friends, too, might hear His saving word?
Who is the Son of Man? Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man” in the Gospel for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (see Mark 2:10). What does that mean? The term appears more than 100 times in Scripture, often as another way of saying “man” or “human” (see Numbers 23:19; Psalm 8:4).
But Jesus is referring to the prophet Daniel’s mysterious vision of “one like a son of man.” In Daniel’s vision, the son of man travels on the clouds of heaven and is presented before God. He receives from God “an everlasting dominion” and “nations and peoples of every language serve him” (see Daniel 7:13-14).
The Son of Man is the king of heaven and earth, as Jesus makes clear. The son has authority to forgive sins (see Mark 2:10), is Lord of the sabbath (see Mark 2:28), and will judge people according to their deeds (see John 5:27; Matthew 25:31).
As the Son of Man, Jesus is enthroned in heaven, seated at the right of the Father—as He promised He would be (see Mark 14:62; Acts 7:56).
St. Peter Chrysologus
Sermon 50 (PL 52, 339)
“Child, your sins are forgiven.” By these words Christ wished to be acknowledged as God even while concealing himself from people’s eyes in the appearance of a man. He was likened to the prophets because of his demonstrations of power and his
miracles, and yet it was due to him and to his own power that they, too, had worked their miracles. To bestow forgiveness for sins is not in human power; it is the sign that distinguishes God. So it was in this way that Jesus began to reveal his divinity in human hearts – and this made the Pharisees mad with rage. They replied: “This man is blaspheming! Who but God alone can forgive sins?”
Oh you Pharisee! You think yourself knowledgeable but you are only an ignoramus! You think you are honoring God but you fail to recognise him! You think you are bearing witness but you are bearing the blows! If God is truly he who forgives sins, why do you not admit to Christ’s divinity?
Since he is able to bestow forgiveness on a single sin therefore it is he who wipes out the sins of the whole world: “See the Lamb of God! This is he who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1,29).
Listen to him so that you may be able to grasp his divinity, for he has entered into the depths of your being. Behold him: he has reached to the deep places of your thoughts. Understand the one who exposes the secret intentions of your heart.
Pope Benedict XVI
Angelus, February 19, 2006
On these Sundays, the liturgy presents the Gospel account of various healings brought about by Christ: last Sunday, the leper, and today, a paralyzed man lying on his bed, whom four people carried to Jesus. Having noted their faith, he said to the paralytic: “My son, your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2: 5). By so doing he made it clear that first of all he wanted to heal the spirit.
The paralyzed man is the image of every human being whom sin prevents from moving about freely, from walking on the path of good and from giving the best of himself. Indeed, by taking root in the soul, evil binds the person with the ties of falsehood, anger, envy and other sins and gradually paralyzes him.
Jesus, therefore, scandalizing the scribes who were present, first said: “… your sins are forgiven”. Only later, to demonstrate the authority to forgive sins that God had conferred upon him, did he add: “Stand up! Pick up your mat and go home” (Mk 2: 11), and heals the man completely. The message is clear: human beings, paralyzed by sin, need God’s mercy which Christ came to give to them so that, their hearts healed, their whole life might flourish anew.
Today too, humanity is marked by sin which prevents it from rapidly progressing in those values of brotherhood, justice and peace that with solemn declarations it had resolved to practise. Why? What is blocking it? What is paralyzing this integral development?
Pope Benedict XVI
Angelus, February 26, 2009
The Gospel passage on which the liturgy leads us to meditate on this Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time relates the episode of the paralytic, forgiven and healed (Mk 2: 1-12). While Jesus was preaching, among the many sick people who were brought to him there was a paralytic on a stretcher. On seeing him the Lord said: “My son, your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2: 5).
And since some of those present were scandalized at hearing these words, he added: “”That you may know that the Son of man has authority to forgive sins on earth’, he said to the paralytic, “I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home'” (Mk 2: 10-11). And the paralytic went away healed. This Gospel account shows that Jesus has the power not only to heal a sick body but also to forgive sins; indeed, the physical recovery is a sign of the spiritual healing that his forgiveness produces. Sin is effectively a sort of paralysis of the spirit from which only the power of God’s merciful love can set us free, allowing us to rise again and continue on the path of goodness.
We know well that there are many historical reasons for this and that the problem is complex. But the Word of God invites us to have a gaze of faith and to trust, like the people who were carrying the paralytic, that Jesus alone is capable of true healing.
