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CHRISTINE77
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If you are on the fence, you are doubtful. I don’t know if it’s useless, but it would be better to believe in the sacrament.
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Nita
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Just wanted to post some of the commentary I’ve read on this healing incident.
The Navarre Bible’s Mt. 9:3-7 commentary on this incident says the following:3-7, Here “to say” obviously means “to say and mean it”, “to say producing the result which your words imply”. Our Lord is arguing as follows: which is easier–to cure the paralytic’s body or to forgive the sins of his soul? Undoubtedly, to cure his body; for the soul is superior to the body and therefore diseases of the soul are the more difficult to cure. However, a physical cure can be seen, whereas a cure of the soul cannot. Jesus proves the hidden cure by performing a visible one.
The Jews thought that any illness was due to personal sin (cf Jn 9:1-3); so when they heard Jesus saying, “Your sins are forgiven”, they reasoned in their minds as follows: only God can forgive sins (cf. (Lk 5:21); this man says that he has power to forgive sins; therefore, he is claiming a power which belongs to God alone–which is blasphemy. Our Lord, however, forestalls them, using their own arguments: by curing the paralytic by just saying the word, he shows them that since he has the power to cure the effects of sin (which is what they believe disease to be), then he also has power to cure the cause of illness (sin); therefore, he has divine power.And St. John Chrysostom in his commentary on the incident says:For whether is easier, says He, to say, Your sins be forgiven you? Or to say, Take up your bed, and go unto your house? Matthew 9:5-6 Now what He says is like this, Which seems to you easier, to bind up a disorganized body, or to undo the sins of a soul? It is quite manifest; to bind up a body. For by how much a soul is better than a body, by so much is the doing away sins a greater work than this; but because the one is unseen, the other in sight, I throw in that, which although an inferior thing, is yet more open to sense; that the greater also and the unseen may thereby receive its proof;
newadvent.org/fathers/200129.htm
The Navarre Bible’s Mt. 9:3-7 commentary on this incident says the following:3-7, Here “to say” obviously means “to say and mean it”, “to say producing the result which your words imply”. Our Lord is arguing as follows: which is easier–to cure the paralytic’s body or to forgive the sins of his soul? Undoubtedly, to cure his body; for the soul is superior to the body and therefore diseases of the soul are the more difficult to cure. However, a physical cure can be seen, whereas a cure of the soul cannot. Jesus proves the hidden cure by performing a visible one.
The Jews thought that any illness was due to personal sin (cf Jn 9:1-3); so when they heard Jesus saying, “Your sins are forgiven”, they reasoned in their minds as follows: only God can forgive sins (cf. (Lk 5:21); this man says that he has power to forgive sins; therefore, he is claiming a power which belongs to God alone–which is blasphemy. Our Lord, however, forestalls them, using their own arguments: by curing the paralytic by just saying the word, he shows them that since he has the power to cure the effects of sin (which is what they believe disease to be), then he also has power to cure the cause of illness (sin); therefore, he has divine power.And St. John Chrysostom in his commentary on the incident says:For whether is easier, says He, to say, Your sins be forgiven you? Or to say, Take up your bed, and go unto your house? Matthew 9:5-6 Now what He says is like this, Which seems to you easier, to bind up a disorganized body, or to undo the sins of a soul? It is quite manifest; to bind up a body. For by how much a soul is better than a body, by so much is the doing away sins a greater work than this; but because the one is unseen, the other in sight, I throw in that, which although an inferior thing, is yet more open to sense; that the greater also and the unseen may thereby receive its proof;
newadvent.org/fathers/200129.htm
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Nita
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As I’ve pondered this event the last several days, another question arose in my mind today:
When the paralytic was brought to Jesus for healing, why did Jesus respond by publicly forgiving his sins rather than physically healing him? Why didn’t He just heal the paralytic in the first place?
I can’t think of any other time where someone came to Jesus for physical healing and Jesus instead pronounces spiritual healing of sins.
Jesus seems to have physically healed the paralytic more as a response to the doubt of the scribes rather than as a response to a request for the paralytic’s physical healing.
All Our Lord’s actions are good, have a purpose, and are thought out. There was a very good reason for His doing it this way, and I’m just wondering what it might have been.
When the paralytic was brought to Jesus for healing, why did Jesus respond by publicly forgiving his sins rather than physically healing him? Why didn’t He just heal the paralytic in the first place?
I can’t think of any other time where someone came to Jesus for physical healing and Jesus instead pronounces spiritual healing of sins.
Jesus seems to have physically healed the paralytic more as a response to the doubt of the scribes rather than as a response to a request for the paralytic’s physical healing.
All Our Lord’s actions are good, have a purpose, and are thought out. There was a very good reason for His doing it this way, and I’m just wondering what it might have been.
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