Homily

Yesterday was a beautiful, warm and sun-filled day. But all that was outdone for me by one other element. Yesterday was the day that Traci Cooper, in preparation for her full entrance into the church, went to Confession for the first time. And as she was walking with me to go into the church, I noticed she had some Kleenex that she was carrying with her. I was very touched by that. But I told her not to worry, because I rarely cry when I'm hearing confessions. It was a great day because she entered the church one way and walked out in a very different way. Just like the man in today's Gospel, who also entered into the house one way and walked out in a very different way.

Recently at Wednesday morning Bible study, we were reading the story of the Man Born Blind in John's Gospel, where the disciples asked Jesus whose sin had caused the man's blindness. Was it his sin or his parents'? There were many, even in Jesus' time who believed that illness was caused by God as a punishment for sins. But Jesus tells them the man was not blind because of his sins or anyone else's sins. We cannot say that this person or that person is ill or has some kind of physical defect because of their sins, because we know that throughout the ages some of the holiest people have suffered from terrible diseases. So I want to be very clear about that, of course. And yet at the same time, there is a certain link between sins and sickness because we are one person, not two. There is not the spiritual me and the physical me—there is just me. Illness may tempt us to sin, or it may lead us to virtue and faith. Sin may not be the reason why I am sick, or it may be a direct result of my sins. We do not need great imagination to understand that certain immoral behaviors bring the risk of disease. We can be hurt by our physical ills and by our spiritual ills, and so they are, if we have a proper understanding related to each other in a certain sense, because they are both ills for us.

Mark bring us this truth in today's story where Jesus heals the man first of his sins and then of his paralysis. He suffered from both. And do we not pray for the same? In the prayer before Communion, do we not ask for the healing of our souls and bodies? At other places in the Liturgy, don't we ask for health as well as for pardon? And when I go to anoint someone who is sick, aren't the prayers asking the Lord to grant physical relief as well as the forgiveness of sins of the person I am anointing? We are not souls trapped in bodies. We are each one person who may suffer spiritually and physically, or who may enjoy health both in body and spirit.

Now, on to Jesus' question: Which is easier to say to the man, "Your sins are forgiven you," or to say, "Get up, pick up your mat and go home?" Then Jesus offers them a physical healing to prove to them the spiritual healing that had already been granted to the man. His physical freedom was a symbol of his freedom from sins, just as his paralysis just moments ago was symbolic of the effects of sin in our lives.

Sin surely drags us down, lays us low, presses in on our lives, and it's a burden to carry. That's why so often after Confession, people may even feel somehow "lighter" because they have left behind a genuine burden. The trouble comes in when we wrongly think that we have no sin when, in fact, we are carrying that burden. It may even be that we get so used to our sins, or at least certain sins, that we don't even see them as sins, just as part of everyday life and yet they still weigh us down. If you put a bowling ball into a backpack and strap it on, and wear it all day long, every day, it will bother you at first and cause a lot of trouble. But after a while, you get used to it, you find ways to cope with it and you adjust your life and actions to fit into this condition. Give it enough time and it will even seem natural and normal to you despite the fact that some people tell you it's not a good idea. It just doesn't really bother you anymore. But the fact remains that you still have a bowling ball in a backpack strapped to your body every day, and although it may not trouble you, imagine how much better your life would be if you dropped that backpack and never put it on again—to walk about freely.

We can always ask the Lord to forgive our sins. Confession is a great way to do this, but there are endless opportunities to ask the Lord's pardon for our sins. I know that when it comes to sinning, we probably all think that we are amateurs, and we may be tempted to ignore asking forgiveness and leaving that up to the big-time sinners, of whom I am not the first. We may even mouth the words, "O God forgive me my sins and have mercy on me," but if we don't have some sense of our sinfulness when we say them, we cannot expect to be pardoned. It's like when mom tells her daughter to clean up her room. "Okay, I will." It sounds good to say but there is no real truth behind those words. There is no forgiveness if we do not believe that we truly are sinners, and if we don't think we truly are sinners then we are carrying bowling balls in backpacks strapped to our persons, and although the weights may be different from one person to another and from time to time in our lives, why would we not want to shed that burden, no matter how used to it we may have become—to be able to walk more freely?

I realize when there is talk of sin, most of the time people take it in a very negative way. The finger is being pointed: "Bad boy, bad girl! Shame on you!" But today's Gospel is a reminder that mentioning the forgiveness of sins is not done to put us down but rather to lift us up, so that we may walk in greater freedom and greater humanity. We get down on our knees so that Christ Himself may lift us up. If we do not have a genuine desire to be forgiven for our genuine sins, then we shall not find genuine freedom because Christ will not force us to accept a pardon we have not asked for, and don't think we need.

Two thousand years ago, a paralyzed man had an extraordinarily great day, and walked about in freedom. Yesterday a woman here also ended up walking in great freedom. Today it is our chance once again, this Lent our chance once again to regain our own freedom. Let these words we will speak not be simply the words of the congregation, but let us speak them as sincerely as we may find possible:

O God, be merciful to me a sinner.
O God, cleanse me of my sins and have mercy on me.
O Lord, forgive me for I have sinned without number.