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the Thirteenth week in Ordinary Time

Commentary of the day

Saint John Chrysostom (c.345-407), priest at Antioch then Bishop of Constantinople, Doctor of the Church

Homilies on Saint Matthew’s Gospel, no. 29, 1

« Who but God alone can forgive sins? » (Mk 2,7)

« And there people brought to him a paralytic. » Saint Matthew merely says that this paralytic was carried to Jesus. Other evangelists describe how he was let down through an opening in the roof and placed before the Lord without expressing any particular request, leaving it to him to assess the healing,,,

« When Jesus saw their faith», the Gospel says, that is to say, the faith of those who had brought the man to him. Consider how sometimes Christ pays no attention to the faith of the sick person: perhaps because the latter is incapable of it, being unconscious or possessed with an evil spirit. However, in this case, this paralytic had great trust in Jesus; otherwise, would he have allowed them to let him down in front of him? Christ responds to this trust with an extraordinary miracle. With the power of God himself he forgives this man’s sins. Thus he showed that he is equal to the Father, a truth he had already shown when he said to the leper: “I will do it; be made clean” (Mt 8,3)... and when, with a word, he stilled the tempestuous sea (Mt 8,26), or when, as God, he had cast out the demons who recognized in him their ruler and their judge (Mt 8,32). So here, he shows his adversaries, to their great astonishment, that he is equal to the Father.

And once more the Savior shows here how he turns away from anything spectacular or a source of vainglory. On all sides the crowd is pressing him yet he is in no hurry to work a visible miracle by healing the external paralysis of this man... He begins with an invisible miracle by healing the man’s soul. This kind of healing is far more beneficial for him and, outwardly speaking, less glorious for Christ.

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