Today’s first reading from the Letter to the Hebrews and the Gospel Reading brought forward a very clear message to all of us, that we must stay faithful and indeed have faith in the Lord. If we remain faithful in God, He will reward us, but if we abandon Him, we will not merit His Kingdom as our reward. And we should honour the Lord at all times, and respect the holiness of Sundays as God’s holy day, and participate fully in the Holy Mass on Sundays.

In our daily lives, we encountered many problems, difficulties, and challenges. Such is also the challenges that faces the Lord when He created our world. As He created our world, He laboured and toiled, shaping creation and our world as we know it today. And yet, after all things are completed, He pulled back and rested. This day when the Lord rested is the day that we now respect as the Holy Day of God, Sunday. In the third commandment, God commanded us to honour His Holy Day. Why should we honour such a day? It is important that we find some time in the midst of our busy lives to spend it with God, God who loves us, and God who created us. Particularly, we should participate fully in the Holy Eucharist every Sundays, and receive our Lord into ourselves through the Most Precious Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

The Lord Himself had said, “Come to me, all of you who work hard and who carry heavy burdens, and I will refresh you/give you rest. We deserve the Lord’s refreshment only if we had the courage to come to Him, and seek His forgiveness. Just as the Lord is present in the church in the Most Holy Eucharist, let us all come to be with Him just as the people gathered around Jesus in the home. By seeing our great faith in Him, the Lord will reward us, just as how Jesus healed the paralytic after seeing the great faith of those around Him, especially the four people who removed the roof in order to bring the paralytic before Jesus.

In the letter to the Hebrews, a contrast was made between those who listen to God directly (the Apostles, and the people gathered around Jesus in the house, when Jesus still walked this world with them, and the believers who indirectly listen to the Word of the Lord through the Scripture and the teachings of the priests and the church. But this do not mean actually that we cannot be as faithful as those who has seen the Lord. Remember that the Lord Himself said to Thomas, when he believed only after seeing the Resurrected Christ : “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believes”. That means, although we do not see the Lord directly, we can still believe in Him, and in His love, and particularly in this Year of Faith, we must strive to strengthen our Faith in God.

Then, the Gospel reading today also highlighted the Authority that has been given to Jesus, as the Son of God, to forgive sins. Why do we then confess to priests? Why do we tell them our sins? Can’t we just confess it to God and be forgiven? Christ has given the authority to forgive sins to His Apostles : “Those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven, and those whose sins you retain, they are retained”, and this authority came down from the Apostles, to the bishops, and finally to the priests that we meet in our lives. Through these priests, the Lord work His authority to forgive our sins, and this is why, we should confess frequently and regularly, that whatever sins, even little sins that we have, are forgiven by God, through our priests.

In addition to this, the authority of the Lord in forgiving our sins and His healing of the paralytic shows that the spiritual sickness of the soul through sin can indeed affect the physical dimensions of our body. Many of our physical illness can be tied to the poor conditions of our mentality, and our soul. So first, rather than seek to cure our physical infirmities, we should first seek peace with God, by asking for His mercy on us, that our sins will be forgiven. It is better for us to be not physically very healthy but having a pure and peaceful soul untainted by sin, rather then be very healthy, but have a corrupted soul filled with sin. Never neglect the soul, as much as we put much attention to our physical health by consuming vitamins and healthy foods. We also need spiritual food, the Word of God in the Scripture, and to pray to God constantly, speaking to the Lord, and listening to Him. That our being will not be just physically healthy, but also spiritually robust as well!

May the Lord bless us this day, that we will be spiritually healthy as we are physically healthy, and just like the actions of the four men who carried the paralytic to Jesus, let us care for one another, and comfort those who are sorrowful, and bring the Word of God to those who are in darkness, that just like the paralytic, they may be healed as well, and become children of the Light. Let us strengthen our faith in this Holy Year of Faith, and renew our commitment to love God, to honour His holy day in the Mass, and to love one another, just as God loves us. Amen.