“I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.”
The heart of Jesus brims over
with the most tender and efficacious compassion. He speaks
and healing occurs. God’s love in Christ breaks through; God’s Word as in the
beginning is fruitful and full of power. For the love of God enfleshed in
Christ Jesus has no patience with evil and sickness. Jesus is opposed to all that oppresses and
burdens us; his power is expressed in humble, loving, compassionate mercy. Jesus gives this once paralyzed man back to his friends, to his family, to his community. And so the words of the prophet Isaiah are fulfilled in Jesus:
Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
Say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
With divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
Then will the lame leap like a stag,
then the tongue of the mute will sing.
Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Meditation on today's Mass readings by one of the monks.
Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
Say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
With divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
Then will the lame leap like a stag,
then the tongue of the mute will sing.
Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Meditation on today's Mass readings by one of the monks.