Thursday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 6, 2023

Matthew 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.

“Jesus made the crossing, and came into his own town.”  Earlier in his Gospel, St. Matthew had informed us that “And leaving the city Nazareth, [Jesus] came and dwelt in Capernaum on the sea coast” (Matthew 4, 13).  St. Luke connects the Lord’s near-murder in Nazareth with his settling in Capernaum, a town which he later rebuked for its lack of repentance even after he had lived there and performed many miracles there: “And you, Capernaum, shall you be exalted up to heaven? You shall go down even unto hell. For if in Sodom had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, perhaps it would have remained unto this day” (Matthew 11, 23).  This, in turn, brings to mind how St. John lamented that the Lord “came unto his country, but his own people received him not” (John 1, 11).  “People brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher.”  We see how Matthew continues his practice of summarizing the deeds of Jesus so that they serve, in his Gospel, to underline his words, and to show the divine approval of them.  For, St. Mark gives a vivid description of how the paralytics friends could not get the man to Jesus for healing because of the crowds outside the house and so they went round the back, hoisted him to the roof, and let him down with ropes before the Lord.  It is fascinating to see the Evangelists working according to their purposes.  They are not editing some previously written text but understanding what they had seen and heard in different ways.

“When Jesus saw their faith.”  They show their faith and the Lord sees it and rewards it.  Faith is to be shown, not to be locked up secretly within one’s heart.  In this case, the friends of the paralytic believed in Jesus as a healer.  Their faith was not perfect, since he had not yet revealed himself as the Son of God, but it was enough for this healing.  “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.”  The Greek word translated here as “courage” is a verb meaning something like, “Be of good cheer.”  It may have been used to translate the Hebrew greeting shalom.  The Lord thus greets the man who is paralyzed and then immediately says to him that his sins are forgiven.  We might wonder that the Lord heals his paralysis by forgiving his sins.  The paralysis may have been caused by some sin of his, or it could be the sign of the sin within him.  In fact, the Jews at that time believed that bad things happened to people when they committed sin.  We can see this in the question the Apostles ask Jesus when they see a man born blind: “Rabbi, who has sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?” (John 9, 2).  But while then Lord replied that the man’s blindness was not the result of sin, here he seems to indicate that this man’s paralysis was.  The Lord was in fact pointing to the man’s physical condition as a sign of his spiritual condition.  And it is fitting that the man should be “paralyzed” spiritually by sin, for that is one of sin’s effects: it “cripples” a person’s ability to live virtuously and in the grace of God.  Without good physical health a person cannot walk, and without the life of grace, no one can please God.  The Lord sees that just as eager as the man is to walk again, so he is eager to be forgiven his sins, and so the Lord says to him, “Your sins are forgiven.”  

“This man is blaspheming.”  That is, since only God can forgive sins, Jesus must be making himself out to be God.  And if Jesus were only a human being and not the incarnate Son of God, they would have been right to think he was blaspheming.  Matthew is showing us that Jesus is teaching that he can forgive sins, and then he shows Jesus proving that he can do this with the man’s healing.  The healing is the sign that his sins have been forgiven just as his paralysis was the sign of his sin.  We learn from Mark’s Gospel that the Pharisees were so infuriated by the Lord’s claim to forgive sins that they began to plot against him from that time.  They overlooked or denied the miracle, performed before their very eyes, in their personal hatred for Jesus.  “Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.”. Not only did Jesus perform an instantaneous cure of the man’s paralysis, but the Lord told him right away to stand up and to carry his stretcher back home with him.  Not only can he walk again, but he can perform some service with his regained ability to walk.  He did not have limited ability, but the health he had before he became paralyzed.

“When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to men.”  Not even Moses forgave sin.  The people must have been staggered that one walked among them who forgave sin.  And there were no expensive sacrifices and onerous journeys to Jerusalem, no vows that had to be fulfilled.  Jesus looked into the man’s heart, saw his contrition, and forgave him.  It was as simple as the cure.  There were no potions to take, no special long prayers to make, no lengthy period of convalescence.  Later, the Lord will share this authority with his Apostles, who shared it in turn, until the present day when Catholic priests have the authority to forgive sins.  The heavy guilt of a lifetime can be lifted away in a few moments in the Sacrament of Penance.