What are you thinking in your hearts?

Is 35,1-10; Ps 84,9-14; Lc 5,17-26.
10 DECEMBER

In Genesis, the first great prayer is a request for forgiveness for the city of Sodom raised to the Lord by his faithful friend Abraham. It is a request that at a certain point does not dare go beyond. It stops. Abraham does not ask for forgiveness if in Sodom only five or just one people were to be found. We know that in the prophet Jeremiah it is the Lord who promises to save Jerusalem if only one righteous was to be found in the city. We know that in order to obtain forgiveness for the people that fell into the grave sin of idolatry, Moses engaged a hard fight with the Lord, reminding him of his obligation to be faithful to the promise made to his servant and friend Abraham. Because of this fidelity, the Lord forgives his people. All the prophets have invited the children of Israel and of Judah to return to the Lord with profound repentance in order to obtain forgiveness from God. We know that with Ezekiel the Lord is ready to forgive every sin, but always conditioned to repentance in true conversion. Nathan goes to David to announce him that the Lord had forgiven his sin and that he had freed him from death, due to his adultery and even murder. Jesus tells the paralytic the same words said by Natan to King David and scribes and Pharisees condemn Jesus for having exercised a power not due and not given to him. But the true prophet does not receive power from men, he receives it directly from God. Just as he receives from God the other power to give life to a cripple lying on a stretcher. If Jesus is from God, he is from God in works and words. He cannot be from God in the works and not from God in words. In miracles he is from the Father. In the forgiveness of sins from himself. Jesus is either all from God or from himself. If he is all from  himself, never might he give life to a cripple. This is not a power that comes from men.

One day as Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was with him for healing. And some men brought on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed; they were trying to bring him in and set (him) in his presence. But not finding a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle in front of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said, “As for you, your sins are forgiven.” Then the scribes and Pharisees began to ask themselves, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who but God alone can forgive sins?” Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them in reply, “What are you thinking in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.” He stood up immediately before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God. Then astonishment seized them all and they glorified God, and, struck with awe, they said, “We have seen incredible things today.”

The rules of forgiveness change in the New Testament. First of all it is the offended person who has to be reconciled with the offender. It is he who must leave his offer at the altar, go to the brother who has sinned against him and offer the gift of reconciliation and peace. How many times must forgiveness be given and reconciliation offered? Seventy times seven, that is always and forever. There is no limit in the gift of peace and reconciliation. St. Paul is the herald of forgiveness and its minister. He invites everyone to let himself be reconciled with God. God offers his peace. It is up to man to welcome it, repenting and changing life: returning to the path of justice, walking in the truth and following the light of Christ. Jesus gives forgiveness first and then healing, because he wants to educate every man that the real disease, the real leprosy, the true paralysis is not that of the body, but that of the spirit and the soul. To obtain the healing of a body that will be transformed into dust tomorrow, even a huge wealth is consumed. While nothing is done for the healing of the soul and the spirit, one does not even think that he has a soul and a spirit that must be brought into grace and into true light. It is useless to save the body, if then soul and body end up in Gehenna.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints ensure that every Christian cures his soul according to truth.