A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 4, n. 13)
7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – February 19, 2006
“Lord, Heal My Soul!”
BIBLE READINGS
Is 43:18-19, 21-22, 24b-25 // 2 Cor 1:18-22 // Mk 2:1-12
N.B. This new series of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY presents a biblico-liturgical study of the Old Testament reading of each Sunday Mass to serve as background for a better understanding of the Gospel proclaimed in the liturgy. For a biblico-liturgical study of the Gospel for each Sunday, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
Reading the Los Angeles Times (cf. February 8, 2006, p. B2), I was struck by its very inspiring article on the Bridges to Recovery Program organized more than six years ago by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to put a dent in its domestic violence caseload by teaching convicted batterers how to control their anger and be better parents and partners. Bridges to Recovery began in June 1999 when Lt. Terence McCarty, who oversees inmate education at the Lynwood jail, realized deputies were reeling in the same batterers again and again. He enlisted Hacienda La Puente School District officials to develop a curriculum, which is taught largely by the charismatic Dr. James Beard and two other instructors. The curriculum is heavy on lessons in self-discovery and self-control, with daily lectures and essay assignments on such topics as handling criticism, “acting like a man” and parenting. Dr. Beard has embroidered that syllabus with his life story – a childhood of poverty and a series of disastrous relationships – giving him credibility with his students. Letters from grateful wives and testimonials from released graduates, as well as re-arrest statistics have told them that the program works. One of the former inmates testified, “James changed my life. He taught me that no one can make me angry except myself.”
The participants in the Bridges to Recovery Program who have learned to overcome their violent tendencies are set on the road to recovery. Liberated from their prison of anger and the spiritual paralysis brought about by their sinful actions, they are now bravely journeying towards inner healing and relishing the promise of new life. Indeed, this modern day story evokes the healing reality of God’s forgiving love, manifested radically and brought to fulfillment in his Son Jesus Christ.
In this Sunday’s Gospel (Mk 2:1-12), the evangelist Mark depicts anew the power of Jesus as healer, but in a more marvelous way. Jesus offers the gift of healing not only to our physical body, but above all, to our inner self paralyzed by spiritual ills and ravaged by death-dealing sin. Hence, the physical healing of the paralyzed man at Capernaum simply illustrates the spiritual healing that Jesus carries out at the deepest, innermost level through his gift of forgiveness: “Child, your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2:5).
The complete healing of the Capernaum paralytic is enriched with the gentle, comforting words of Yahweh transmitted by the prophet Isaiah to the people of Israel exiled in Babylon: “Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not. See. I am doing something new … It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more.” Seen against the backdrop of this Old Testament reading (Is 43:18-19, 21-22, 24b-25) in which Yahweh avows the radical newness of his saving act and the gratuity of his gift of forgiveness, the forgiveness won and offered to us by Christ through his paschal suffering on the cross acquires a wonderful promise of newness.
Meditating on the Isaiah text, the Benedictine scholar Adrian Nocent gleans the astoundingly fresh and renewing character of the messianic gift of forgiveness: “In this passage, forgiveness is presented as a form of renewal: we are to forget the past. God says that Israel has treated him as a servant and weighed him down with the sins of his people. Yet he forgives and will no longer remember their sins! The New Testament throws light on what God says here through Isaiah, for according to the New Testament, forgiveness is an act by which God creates anew. In its full form, then, forgiveness is an eschatological reality: Behold, I make all things new (Rev 21:5). The whole purpose of the coming of Jesus and of his paschal mystery was to renew the world. St. Paul, for his part, writes: Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come (2 Cor 5:17).”
Jesus Christ, the healer of body and soul, enables us enter into a beautiful world of wholeness and newness, marked by his gift of forgiving and recreating love. His healing and forgiving love is now passed on to the Church to be shared with today’s world, broken by all kinds of infirmity and paralyzed by the morbid effects of sin - their willful negation of God. Together with Christ, the physician par excellence, the Christian disciples are called to respond to the anguished cry of the modern man: “Lord, heal my soul!”
The psychiatric therapist-writer Caryll Houselander concludes: “Our contemplation in the world is the contemplation of the humiliated Christ in the human race … It is so to speak, the suffering face of Christ on the via crucis, impressed upon humanity, his face covered in blood and sweat and tears, just as we do literally see so many faces now. This disfigurement is caused by sin; exactly as Christ’s historical passion was caused by sin, so is his passion in us. It is he whom we meet every day and in every house and every street, and were it not that his love has transformed even the wounding and bruising of sin, we should meet the ugliness of despair everywhere. As it is, Christ, by giving himself to our humanity has given his own mysterious beauty and significance to every tear on the human face, to every drop of blood shed from its veins. So it is Christ whom we look on today, in everyone, everywhere, in the hospitals, in the factories, in the streets. We see him in the wounded, in the helpless old people and the infants, in the bereaved, in the homeless, in the refugees … We cannot begin to understand this without wanting to respond to such love and to comfort Christ in all people.”
PERSONAL REFLECTION
by Gerry Valle
(Member: ASSOCIATION OF PAULINE COOPERATORS – Friends of the Divine Master, Antipolo Unit, Philippines)
There are many occasions in our life when we neglect the greatest gift of God to man, his only Son Jesus Christ. Oftentimes we hesitate and think twice to receive the sacrament of Reconciliation, making ourselves like the “paralytic” waiting for some people to bring or accompany us to the priest. We then realize that we can only get peace when we seek forgiveness for the sins we have committed, finally experiencing the healing that we falsely thought could be obtained from earthly things.
I remember one confession when the priest asked me before giving his blessing, “Why did you decide to receive the sacrament of Reconciliation?” With that I realized more deeply Jesus’ promise that he would resurrect us from our sins. But at times, we take matters into our hands and take for granted that we can make up for our sins later on. At other times, too busy with our daily schedule, we just set another time for it.
God’s message for all of us is “healing”. We are indeed very lucky that the Father sent his Son Jesus to us to deliver the healing we need. There is no “yes” and “no” when we ask for God’s forgiveness; it is always “yes”! The unconditional love of God for man wipes out our sins and it is only man who could say “no” to God’s love.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. What are the various images that deeply strike us in the healing episode of the paralytic in the village of Capernaum? How do the healing words of Jesus, “Child, your sins are forgiven” personally touch us? What are the various paralyses and illnesses that afflict our soul and body?
B. How do we respond to Yahweh’s compassionate offer of forgiveness: “Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not. See. I am doing something new … It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more”?
C. How do we treasure the healing acts of Christ made present to us through the Church’s sacraments of healing? How do we respond to the distressed cry in today’s world: “Lord, heal my soul”?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(Adapted from Cl. Bernard, Le temps du Coeur nouveau: Chantes, Prieres, cf. Days of the Lord, vol. 5, Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1993, p. 69)
Leader: Inert before you, this man
at your word takes his pallet
in the very instant God forgives.
Paralyzed by our fear
we hope to see the sinner freed,
walking in your footsteps.
Come to us again on our roads,
You, the Lord who can heal us!
Say one word, stretch out your hand,
Our wounded bodies will blossom anew!
Assembly: Lord Jesus, you alone can heal us.
Only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not. See. I am doing something new … It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more.” (Is 43:18, 24b-25)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that Jesus may heal us of all the afflictions that paralyze us in our innermost being and that he may mobilize all our powers at the service of healing. Offer your spiritual, moral and material contribution to promote the healing ministry to the physically handicapped, especially the paralytics.
B. ACTION PLAN: To celebrate the healing power of Jesus, who made the paralytic whole in soul and body, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR (Vol. 2, n. 12): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US