Friday, January 13 : Saint Ambrose

“Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic: ‘Your sins are forgiven you’.” The Lord is great: for the sake of the former he forgives the latter; he answers the prayer of the first and pardons the sins of the second. O men, why is it that today your fellow traveller is unable to do anything for you when, with the Lord, his servant has the right to intervene and to receive? You who judge, learn to pardon; and you who are ill, learn to beseech. If you have no hope of immediate pardon for grave sins, turn to intercessors, turn to the Church who will pray for you. Then, for her sake, the Lord will grant you the pardon he could have denied you. We don’t ignore the historical truth of the paralytic’s cure, but, above all, we acknowledge the healing of his interior self, whose sins are forgiven. … The Lord wants to save sinners; he demonstrates his divinity by his knowledge of what is secret and by the wonders of his deeds. “Which is easier to say,” he asks: “‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Rise and walk’? Here he gives us a complete image of the resurrection since, in healing the wounds of soul and body …, the whole man is healed.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team