Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Is 43:18-19, 21-22, 24b-25
Ps 41:2-3, 4-5, 13-14
2 Cor 1:18-22
Mk 2:1-12

Hello, I'm Franciscan Father Greg Friedman, with the "Sunday Soundbite" for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time.

We live in a skeptical age. When something is advertised as "new" we want proof. So today's first reading is challenging: God says, "See, I'm doing something new!" If you heard God say that to you today—besides wondering where the voice was coming from—would you believe it?

As usual, today's Gospel helps. Jesus is confronted by a paralyzed man, lowered through the roof and laid at his feet. When he offers to forgive the man's sins, his critics are scandalized: Is Jesus claiming divine authority? That would be blasphemy!

But something new is at work here. Jesus is the power of God, present in the midst of human life. He overcomes suffering and sin and earns the praise of the bystanders, who profess that they are indeed witnessing something new.

So what about you and me? Can we admit that God can do something new in our lives, in our day and age, in the midst of the suffering and sin all around us? The challenge is as real today as it was in the time of Isaiah or the time of Jesus.

We need a breakthrough as dramatic as when the friends of the paralyzed man broke through the roof to bring him to Jesus. Let today's Scripture shatter our skepticism and reveal something really new!

Scripture:

•It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more. (Isaiah 43:25)

•Once I said, “O LORD, have pity on me; heal me, though I have sinned against you.” (Psalm 41:5)

•For however many are the promises of God, their Yes is in him; (2 Corinthians 1:20)

•“…I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home.” (Mark 2:11)

Reflection:

•Do you have something in your past that you would like to be free from but cannot leave behind?

•Is there anything that God may forgive or help you to be freed from so you are released from its hold on you?

•Have you asked to be forgiven and accepted the Lord’s grace to forgive?

The Greek word for forgiveness is asphesis, which means to liberate, to release from bondage; it means remission of debt, guilt and punishment. It is used when the prison door is opened and the prisoner can go free. We humans are called to become free, to free others, to nurture life, to look for the worth and the beauty in each and every one of us, and to make our world a beautiful garden where each person and each society can create a harvest of flowers and fruits, and so prepare the seeds of peace for tomorrow.