A reflection for the Monday of the Second Week of Advent

5 December 2022
“Christ Heals the Paralytic at Capernaum” (c. 1300s) by artist unknown. Image: Wikimedia Commons

 

Monday of the Second Week of Advent

Reading: Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm 84 (85):9-14; Luke 5:17-26

5 December 2022

 

“Then astonishment seized them all and they glorified God” – Luke 5:26

Our Gospel for today tells that wonderful story of the healing of the paralytic. People gather by the dozens to hear Jesus, crowding around the doorway of the house. They bring Him a paralysed man, and because there is no way to get him through the door, they climb up on the roof and open a space to lower him down.

Can I suggest a connection between this wonderful narrative and our present evangelical situation? There are an awful lot of Catholics who are paralysed, unable to move, frozen in regard to Christ and the Church. This might be from doubt, from fear, from anger, from old resentment, from ignorance, or from self-reproach. Some of these reasons might be good; some might be bad.

Your job, as a believer, is to bring others to Christ. How? A word of encouragement, a challenge, an explanation, a word of forgiveness, a note, a phone call. We notice the wonderful urgency of these people as they bring the sick man to Jesus. Do we feel the same urgency within his Mystical Body today?

Pray that we can put our ego aside today in our dealings with others.

With thanks to Holy Name of Mary Parish, Hunters Hill, who have supplied these daily Advent and Christmas 2022 reflections from their publication Daily Inspirations of Faith: A Season of Prayer – Advent to Epiphany 2022-2023

 

Read Daily
* indicates required

RELATED STORIES