When we visit the doctor for our regular check-up we expect
to hear the doctor tell us about our blood results and any other possible
problems that might indicate some sort of illness. But what if our doctor hid
our illness from us? What if our doctor knew there were serious complications
with our blood work, but refused to share this information with us? Or
worse....What if our doctor knew there were serious complications with our
blood work, but told us it was normal and we shouldn’t bother trying to change
our eating habits and lifestyle? If this happened to us in our doctor’s office,
we would be furious!
But this is exactly what is happening in our contemporary
society, not physically but spiritually. Every day we go about our routine with
spiritual illnesses, but when many either hide our illnesses from us or try to
make us believe our illness is normal and there is nothing to worry about,
instead of being furious we are thankful. Yet, when we are unaware of a serious
physical illness our anger is a result of admitting we would have been willing
to change our behavior if someone had only told us before it was too late. But
when we find out too late to change, and the illness has overtaken us, we are
filled with regret and anger that someone should have told us!
On this Fourth Sunday of Pascha, the Church calls our
attention to the healing of the paralytic. “Sir I have no man,” was the voice
of regret in the face of illness. Unlike the paralytic we are not alone in our
illness. We have the Church to help diagnose our illness, and then to help find
the cure. But there remains one final obstacle....many of us listen to the
society which is telling us we are not sick, and keeps our spiritual illness
hidden from us. Christ was able to heal the paralytic because his illness was
not hidden. We cannot be healed if our illness remains hidden, or
worse......ignored.
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