15 January 2027 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”” Mark 2:5
The house in Capernaum is so full that four men cannot bring their paralysed friend to Jesus. So they climb onto the roof, dig through it and lower him down on his mat. Mark says: “When Jesus saw their faith”, the faith of the four friends, he spoke to the paralytic. And his first words surprise everyone: “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus goes first to the deepest paralysis, sin. The scribes object: who can forgive sins but God alone? They are right about God, and wrong about Jesus.
To show that “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”, Jesus tells the man to take up his mat and walk, and he does. Everyone is amazed: “We have never seen anything like this!” Hebrews speaks of the “rest” God promised, which the wilderness generation failed to enter through unbelief, and urges: “Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest.” Forgiveness is the beginning of that rest. In the sacrament of Reconciliation Christ still says: your sins are forgiven; rise and walk.
Theme: “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Faith that carries others, forgiveness that heals, rest that God promises.
“But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” Ruth 1:16
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”” Mark 2:5
Apply: Pray daily this week for one friend far from God.
“I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” Isaiah 43:25
“And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”” Mark 2:12
Apply: Go to confession before the end of January.
“And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” Genesis 2:2
“Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.” Hebrews 4:11
Apply: Keep Sunday this week as a true day of rest and worship.
Jesus forgives first, then heals.
Let us be carried, and let us carry others.
Take-home resolution: Bring one friend to Jesus by prayer and invitation this week.
Dear friends, the house in Capernaum is packed. Four men arrive carrying a paralysed friend on a mat. They cannot get near Jesus. So they climb the roof, dig through it and lower their friend right in front of Jesus.
Mark says: when Jesus saw their faith (Mark 2:5). The faith of the friends matters. We are saved as a people, carried by others' prayers and love.
Then Jesus says something unexpected: son, your sins are forgiven. He sees the deepest paralysis. The scribes think: who can forgive sins but God alone? They are right about God. They do not see that God is standing in front of them.
To show his authority, Jesus says: stand up, take your mat and go. And the man walks out before them all. Everyone says: we have never seen anything like this! (Mark 2:12).
Hebrews invites us: let us make every effort to enter God's rest (Hebrews 4:11). Forgiveness is the door. Let us go to confession, and let us be the four friends for someone who cannot reach Jesus alone. Amen.
Children, four friends carried a sick man to Jesus, even through a roof! Jesus forgave him and made him walk. Can you bring a friend to Jesus by praying for them?
Lord Jesus, you saw the faith of four friends and forgave the paralysed man. Thank you for those who have carried me to you. Forgive my sins, raise me up, and let me carry others to you. Amen.
Both readings today are about getting in. Hebrews warns that a promise can stand wide open and still be missed, as it was missed by the generation in the desert. Mark tells of four men who find the door blocked by a crowd and go through the roof. Those who hardened their hearts stayed out; those who would not give up came in, and the man they carried received more than they asked. The key words are rest, faith and authority.
Setting.
Hebrews is a sermon written to Christians who were growing tired. Its author is not named. Just before our reading (3:7–19) the preacher has quoted Psalm 95, “Today, if you hear his voice”, and recalled the generation of the Exodus, who refused to go into the land after the report of the spies (Numbers 14) and died in the desert. God’s word to them was, “They shall not enter my rest.”
Now the preacher makes a surprising move. He joins Psalm 95 to Genesis 2:2, where God rests on the seventh day. The rest that Israel missed was never only a piece of land. It is God’s own rest, open since creation and still offered.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened” (4:2)
A note on the text. The ancient manuscripts differ here. Many of the oldest have a plural, as the NRSV translates: the people were not joined in faith with those who listened. Others have a singular: the message was not joined with faith in those who heard it. The Malayalam POC says more simply that they did not believe. The sense is the same: hearing alone did not save them.
“For we who have believed enter that rest” (4:3)
The verb is in the present tense. The rest lies ahead, and yet believers are already on their way into it.
“Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.” (4:11)
The preacher says “let us” and includes himself. Nobody in the Church is past the need for this warning.
How the Church reads it.
St Augustine opens his Confessions with the prayer that our heart is restless until it rests in God, and he closes The City of God with a picture of the seventh day without evening: “There we shall rest and see, we shall see and love, we shall love and praise”, as the Catechism quotes him (CCC 1720). The Sunday rest of Christians is a small weekly taste of that goal (CCC 2175, 2184–2185).
Setting.
This passage opens a group of five controversy stories (Mark 2:1–3:6). The Lectionary reads all five on the weekdays from today to next Wednesday. Each one raises a question about who Jesus is, and the tension rises until the plot of 3:6.
Jesus has come back to Capernaum, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. “At home” probably means the house of Simon and Andrew (1:29). A house of that region had a flat roof of beams covered with branches and packed earth, reached by an outside stair. Digging through such a roof was possible, and repairing it was too.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”” (2:5)
Mark says “their” faith. The friends’ faith is seen in what they did. Everyone had come for a healing, and Jesus begins somewhere else. This does not mean that every illness is caused by the sick person’s sin. It means that the deepest need is met first.
“Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (2:7)
On this point the scribes are correct. Their reasoning is sound and they defend God’s honour. The only question left is who this man is.
“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (2:10)
Forgiveness cannot be seen, and a walking man can. Jesus offers the visible act as a sign of the invisible one. “On earth” is the surprise: God’s pardon is now available here, through a man in a house in Capernaum.
How the Church reads it.
“Only God forgives sins”, the Catechism says, and since Jesus is the Son of God he says of himself that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins (CCC 1441). This is why his words could scandalize sincere people (CCC 589). The Catechism places this very healing at the head of the sacraments of healing: the Lord who forgave and restored the paralytic wants his Church to continue this work (CCC 1421). Every absolution in the sacrament of Penance is the same authority at work.
Does this story mean that the man’s illness was a punishment for his sin?
The text does not say so, and Jesus rejects that kind of reasoning elsewhere (John 9:1–3; Luke 13:1–5). Illness can be a heavy trial without being a punishment. Here Jesus shows that he has come to heal the whole person, soul and body.