Suffering With Joy

The Man Sick of Palsy

October 18, 2011, Feast of St. Luke, evangelist, physician, and painter

Today seems like a perfect day to write about the sacred liturgy from last Sunday.  Jesus healed a palsied man, evangelized the people because he did it in public, and in so doing, painted us an image of who we are as repentant sinners.

About ten years ago we bought Dom Prosper Guéranger’s (1805-1875) The Liturgical Year collection.  Although it was expensive, I’ve never regretted the investment in what is a good resource for understanding the sacred liturgy for each day, especially Sundays.

I try to keep in mind thoughts from the scriptural themes of every Sunday throughout the week so that I may more faithfully walk in the footsteps of Christ.  Of course, I fail, but the words of the sacred liturgy always revive me. This past Sunday was the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Gospel reading is Matt. 9:1-8.

And entering into a boat, he passed over the water and came into his own city.

And behold, they brought to him one sick of the palsy lying in a bed.  And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the man sick of the palsy: be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee.

And behold some of the scribes said within themselves: He blasphemeth.

And Jesus seeing their thoughts, said, Why do you think evil in your hearts?

Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee: or to say, Arise, and walk?

But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then said he to the man sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house.

And he arose, and went into his house.

And the multitude seeing it, feared, and glorified God that gave such power to men.

According to ancient tradition, the Church urges us to distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual (CCC #115), with the spiritual sense subdivided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses. I’ll post on this another time, but you can always grab your Catechism and read more about this now.

Guéranger cracks open the Gospel for us, linking this passage to the sacred priesthood and the meaning of the healing of the palsied man to us sinners.  You can find all three spiritual meanings of the passage in his exegesis.  Also, the more I consider it throughout the week, the more meaning I find.  But to bring you the expert’s writing from volume 11 of The Liturgical Year:

The Gospel (Matt. 23:1-12) which speaks of the scribes and Pharisees who were seated on the chair of Moses has now been appointed for the Tuesday of the second week of Lent.  But the one which is at present given for this Sunday equally directs our thoughts to the consideration of the superhuman powers of the priesthood, which are the common boon of regenerated humanity.

The faithful…are now invited to meditate upon the prerogative which these same men have of forgiving sins and healing souls.  Even if their conduct be in opposition to their teaching [are we not all hypocrites ourselves?], it in nowise interferes with the authority of the sacred chair, from which, for the Church and in her name, they dispense the bread of doctrine to her children.  Moreover, whatever unworthiness may happen to be in the soul of a priest, it does not in the least lessen the power of the keys which have been put into his hands to open heaven and to shut hell.

For it is the Son of Man, Jesus, who, by the priest, be he a saint, or be he a sinner, rids of their sins His brethren and His creatures, whose miseries He has taken upon Himself, and whose crimes He has atoned for by His Blood.

The Healing of the Paralytic, c. 1560-1590, Netherlandish 16th century, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale collection, 1943.7.7

The miracle of the cure of the paralytic [who represents everyman], which gave an occasion to Jesus of declaring His power of forgiving sins inasmuch as he was Son of Man has always been especially dear to the Church….The catacomb frescoes, which have been preserved to the present day [and continue to be discovered], equally attest the predilection for this subject, wherewith she inspired the Christian artists of the first centuries.  From the very beginning of Christianity, heretics had risen up denying that the Church had the power, which her divine Head gave her, of remitting sin.

Such false teaching would irretrievably condemn to spiritual death an immense number of Christians, who, unhappily, had fallen after their Baptism, but who, according to Catholic dogma, might be restored to grace by the sacrament of Penance.

With what energy, then, would our mother the Church defend the remedy which gives life to her children!  She uttered her anathemas upon, and drove from her communion, those Pharisees of the new law, who, like their Jewish predecessors, refused to acknowledge the infinite mercy and universality of the great mystery of the Redemption.

…The outward cure of the paralytic was both the image and the proof of the cure of his soul, which previously had been in a state of moral paralysis; but he himself represented another sufferer, viz., the human race, which for ages had been a victim to the palsy of sin….At once, to the astonishment of the philosophers and skeptics, and to the confusion of hell, the world rose up from its long and deep humiliation; and to prove how thoroughly his strength had been restored to him, he was seen carrying on his shoulders, by the labor of penance and the mastery over his passions, the bed of his old exhaustion and feebleness, on which pride, lust, and covetousness had so long held him.

From that time forward, complying with the word of Jesus, which was also said to him by the Church, he has been going on towards his house, which is heaven, where eternal joy awaits him!

Let us also give thanks to Jesus, whose marvelous dower, which is the Blood He shed for His bride, suffices to satisfy, through all ages, the claims of eternal justice. It was at Easter time that we saw our Lord instituting the great Sacrament, which thus in one instant restores the sinner to life and strength.  But how double wonderful does its power seem, when we see it working in these times of effeminacy and of well-nigh universal ruin!

Iniquity abounds; crimes are multiplied; and yet, the life-restoring pool, kept full by the sacred stream which flows from the open side of our crucified Lord, is ever absorbing and removing, as often as we permit it, and without leaving one single vestige of them, those mountains of sins, those hideous treasures of iniquity which had been amassed, during long years, by the united agency of the devil, the world, and man himself.

Servant of God Dom Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B.’s cause for beatification was opened by the diocese of LeMans in December of 2005.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Tags: Catholic Church, liturgy, sacred priesthood, sacred scripture

2 Comments to The Man Sick of Palsy

1. 

   Thank you so much for this post Barb.

   God bless you.
   Victor S E Moubarak recently posted..The fox and moon.
Victor S E Moubarak on October 19th, 2011
2. 

   Barb, I love looking at the spiritual sense of scripture. I learned about the different “Senses” when I first started bible study several years ago. Thanks for this. God bless!
   Colleen recently posted..First Things First
Colleen on October 23rd, 2011