17 February 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”” Matthew 9:2
The Gospel begins with a group of people we never meet by name. Jesus crosses the lake to his own town, Capernaum, “and just then some people were carrying a paralyzed man lying on a bed.” The man cannot walk to Jesus; others must carry him. Matthew notes something remarkable: “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.’” It is the faith of the carriers that Jesus sees. In many of our parishes, during the Great Fast, the priest goes from house to house to hear the confessions of the sick and the elderly and to bring them Holy Communion; in others the young people bring the housebound to church for the penitential service, in wheelchairs, in autorickshaws, sometimes on a chair carried by four. Every such journey repeats this Gospel. Some of us walk to Christ; some of us must be carried; and some of us are called to carry.
Then comes the surprise. The friends had brought the man for his legs, but Jesus speaks first about his sins. The scribes are scandalised: “This man is blaspheming.” Only God can forgive sins, and they are right about that. Jesus answers their unspoken thoughts: “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” he said to the paralytic, “Stand up, take your bed and go to your home.” The visible healing proves the invisible one. The deepest paralysis is the one that keeps us from God, and Jesus heals that first. The crowd's response is full of meaning for us: “they glorified God, who had given such authority to human beings.” The authority to forgive, which belongs to God alone, Christ has placed in human hands. On Easter evening he will breathe on his apostles and say: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.” Every confession heard in a Kerala parish this Lent stands on this verse.
Paul tells us what forgiveness is for. It is not a licence to go on sinning: “Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!” The forgiven are set free, not to belong to nobody, but to belong to God. “For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.” The man in the Gospel rose and carried the bed that had carried him. So it is with us: the members of our body that once served sin, the hands, the eyes, the tongue, are now to serve holiness. And the end of this road is not wages but a gift: “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Theme: “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”
Friends who carry, the deepest healing, the authority to forgive given to human beings, and members offered for holiness.
“But Moses' hands grew weary; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; so his hands were steady until the sun set.” Exodus 17:12
“Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2
Apply: Help one sick or elderly person to receive the sacraments this Lent.
“Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” Isaiah 1:18
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”” Matthew 9:2
Apply: Fix the day of your Lenten confession.
“as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12
“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” John 20:23
Apply: Pray this week for the priests who will hear confessions in your parish.
Jesus sees the faith of those who carry, and he heals the deepest paralysis first.
The authority to forgive is in the Church; let us go, and let us bring others.
Take-home resolution: Make your Lenten confession, and help one other person to make theirs.
Dear friends, today some people carry a paralysed man to Jesus. He cannot come by himself. And the Gospel says: when Jesus saw their faith, he said, take heart, son; your sins are forgiven (Matthew 9:2). Their faith carried him.
The friends wanted healing for his legs, but Jesus heals his heart first. The deepest paralysis is sin, which keeps us from God. Then, to show that he has authority to forgive sins, Jesus tells the man: stand up, take your bed and go home (Matthew 9:6). And he does.
The crowd glorified God, who had given such authority to human beings (Matthew 9:8). That authority continues in the Church. When the priest says the words of absolution, it is Christ who says to us: your sins are forgiven.
Saint Paul tells us what the forgiven are to do: present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification (Romans 6:19). Let us go to confession this Lent, and let us carry someone else to Christ. Amen.
Children, some friends carried a sick man to Jesus because they believed Jesus could help. Jesus forgave him and made him walk. Who can you help to come closer to Jesus this week?
Lord Jesus Christ, you saw the faith of those who carried the paralysed man and you forgave his sins. Give us friends who carry us to you, and make us friends who carry others. Thank you for giving to human beings the authority to forgive in your name. Raise us from every paralysis of sin, and let us present our members to you for holiness. Glory to you, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever. Amen.
Today's readings ask who sets us at liberty. Paul says every person serves some master, and that the service of sin pays its wages in death, while God gives eternal life as a gift. In Matthew, a paralysed man is carried to Jesus, and before his legs are healed his sins are forgiven. The key words are slave, gift and authority.
Setting.
Paul has been saying that where sin increased, grace abounded even more (5:20). Someone may then ask whether it matters how we behave. Romans 6 answers: in Baptism we died with Christ to sin (6:3–4). In this section Paul uses the picture of slavery, which every reader in a Roman city would know at first hand. He apologises for the comparison in v. 19. He is using a social fact to make a point, and is not approving of slavery.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted,” (6:17)
Notice the unusual turn of phrase. Paul does not say the teaching was entrusted to them but that they were entrusted to the teaching. Many scholars think he has in mind the instruction given before Baptism.
“So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed?” (6:21)
This is a question for a good examination of conscience. Paul does not argue from fear here. He asks what sin ever really gave us.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (6:23)
The Malayalam POC divides the verses a little differently and puts the first half of this sentence at the end of v. 22.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that the more we do what is good the freer we become, and that the choice of evil is an abuse of freedom that leads to “the slavery of sin” (CCC 1733). Death is a consequence of sin (CCC 1008). St Augustine often repeats that when God crowns our merits he is crowning his own gifts (in substance), and this is the sense of Paul's last verse (compare CCC 2006–2009).
Setting.
“His own town” is Capernaum, where Jesus has settled (4:13). Mark and Luke tell this story too, with the crowd and the opening of the roof (Mark 2:1–12; Luke 5:17–26). Matthew tells it briefly and keeps only what matters most: the faith of those who bring him, the word of forgiveness, the objection, and the sign.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”” (9:2)
“Their faith” means the faith of those who carried him. Others can bring someone to Christ when that person cannot go alone, and this is what intercession does.
“Then some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.”” (9:3)
They are thinking seriously, for only God forgives sins. Their objection states the very truth that the story reveals about Jesus (CCC 589).
“When the crowds saw it, they were filled with awe, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to human beings.” (9:8)
Only Matthew ends this way, and the plural is striking. Many commentators hear in it the Church of Matthew's own day, in which this authority continues (compare 16:19; 18:18).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that only God forgives sins, that Jesus exercises this divine power as Son of God, and that he gives it to men to exercise in his name (CCC 1441). It names Christ the physician of souls and bodies who forgave and healed this man, and it says that he wills his Church to continue this healing in the sacraments (CCC 1421). St Ambrose marvels at a Lord who pardons one person for the sake of others' merit (in substance; On Luke 5).
Does Jesus mean that the man's illness was caused by his sins?
Not in this passage. Elsewhere Jesus rejects that simple link (John 9:2–3; Luke 13:1–5). Here he addresses the deepest need first, and then shows his authority by the healing that can be seen.