The Catholic Calendar for Thursday, July 1, 2004
   Thursday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
   Blessed Junipero Serra, priest, religious

Scripture from Wednesday's Liturgy of the Word:
   Amos 7:10-17
   Psalm 19:8-11
   Matthew 9:1-8

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

"Rise, Pick Up Your Stretcher, and Go Home. . ."

In one way or another, we're all crippled. Some of us are crippled and held immobile by fear, some by pride, some by avarice, by lust, gluttony, or greed. Some are so self-centered they don't even recognize the objective existence of a world outside of themselves.

In every case, it is sin that holds us bound. Sin is the superglue of the supernatural world. Once it is part of you, you're stuck on the path, unable to move--paralyzed.

Jesus comes to each of us and forgives sin, dissolves the block that keeps us in place. But we tend to stay where we are anyway until He tells us we're free to go. And tell us He does--by sending to us the people we are to help.

Our free life in Him is the life of stretcher bearers. When we're mobile, we carry others to Him to be released, and when we're paralyzed we count on others to bring us to His healing touch. There is no one who hasn't experienced the paralysis of sin, and some of us indulge periodically--like the Jews when wandering through the desert--we look back on our captivity with longing. But Jesus breaks that as well. If we're willing, He'll heal us and use us to make the Kingdom a kingdom of those who serve rather than those who wait in sin and fear.

- JuandelaCruz
  (sriddle415 at yahoo dot com)



posted by joachim at 4:06 AM