Why Jesus' timing in healing and forgiving the Paralytic was important
The start of Our Lord's ministry must have seemed like one stupendous miracle after another. But it was deliberately leading up to something...
The start of Our Lord’s ministry must have seemed like one stupendous miracle after another. But it was deliberately leading up to something...
Editor’s Notes
The following mini-series deals with the healing of the paralytic man, let down through the roof. This is the Gospel read on the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
This event occurs early in the Galilean ministry, soon after the cleansing of the leper and the preaching tour that followed.
Christ returned to Capharnaum to teach before a large, mixed audience of the devout, curious, sceptical and immoral. It certainly included Pharisees and doctors of the Law: Coleridge points out that this event took place prior to widespread hostility on the parts of these men – and emphasises that many of them would have been of good will, and would have made up the converts spoken of by Acts and the Gospels themselves.
The short Gospel passage provides a great deal of material for reflection in Coleridge’s chapter, from the nature of punishment for sin, the role of miracles in the Church, and the importance of Confession and the Priesthood.
Given the centrality of the priesthood to an event involving the forgiveness of sin, it is fitting that this incident is immediately followed by Our Lord calling Matthew/Levi.
The Healing of the Paralytic
The Training of the Apostles, Part I
Chapter IV
St. Matt. ix. 1–9; St. Mark ii. 1–14; St. Luke v. 17–29
Story of the Gospels, § 139
Burns and Oates, London, 1884
Interval after the healing of the leper
It has already been noticed that some considerable interval of time must have intervened between the miracle of the healing of the leper and the next recorded incident of the Gospel narrative.
The Evangelist tells us that the public attention was so strongly drawn to our Lord by the publication of the miraculous cure of the leper, that ‘He could not openly go into the city, but was without in desert places,’ to which the people flocked to Him from all sides ‘to hear and to be healed by Him of their infirmities,’ and also that He spent much of His time in retirement and prayer.
Many explanations may and have been given as to this effect of the publicity of so great and so startling a miracle. Our Lord may have feared to arouse the enmity of the Scribes, or the enthusiasm of the people might be feared as likely to produce some disturbance in the town of Capharnaum, of which Herod might take advantage. The crowds which flocked to Him while He kept aloof in the country parts were quite sufficient to occupy His time.
Again, He may have wished to let the effect of this most symbolical miracle work on the hearts and minds of those for whom He was preparing a still more wonderful assertion of power—claiming to forgive sins, of which leprosy was but a figure. He may have wished, too, that the news of the cure might be carried to Jerusalem by the man himself who had been healed, and that there might be time for the authorities, if it so pleased them, to send delegates into Galilee, for the purpose of making inquiries concerning Him on the spot where He had wrought so many wonders.
Careful order of our Lord’s actions
We are apt to pass from one miracle, or discourse, or parable of our Blessed Lord to another, as if there were no delicate and careful connection between the links of the beautiful chain in which His actions were arranged by the Providence of the Father and the guidance of the Holy Ghost.
But, in truth, nothing in our Lord’s life was accidental or at haphazard; we may not always be able to see the connection between one part and that which follows it or has preceded it, but a connection there certainly was, worthy of the full and ecstatic contemplation and admiration of the Angels in Heaven. In the present instance, it is not difficult at all events to conjecture that, as the first of the two miracles of which we are speaking was a preparation for the other, our Lord desired that time should be given for that preparation to ripen and work itself out in the hearts of the people or their leaders.
This is all the more likely, as we find that St. Luke here mentions that our Lord was at this time occupied in prayer. Prayer was, indeed, the habitual and unremitted occupation of His Sacred Heart, but it is specially mentioned that our Lord prayed on certain occasions, which were times when He had taken or was about to take some new step, the consequences of which might be important in the unfolding of the plan of His life or of His designs for His Church.
Our Lord’s prayer at this time
In this instance it is not forbidden us to imagine that the subject of our Lord’s prayers would be connected with the miracle which He had lately wrought as to its spiritual signification. Never before had He so plainly, in a single action which lasted but for a moment, pictured the character of His mission and the manner in which its purpose was to be carried out.
Later on in His course of teaching He described the fallen, helpless, bruised state in which He found the human race, in the touching parable of the man who had fallen among thieves and the Good Samaritan who relieved him. The leper prostrate at His feet, confessing his own misery and our Lord’s power to heal him, and his instantaneous cure by the word of our Lord’s mouth and the touch of His sacred hand, represents our condition with the same vivid completeness as the description of the wounded man in the parable just mentioned.
Our Lord was not only to touch the leprosy of our nature and take it away, but He was to become as a leper for our sake in order to remove it. The rites which were to be gone through at Jerusalem when the healed leper presented himself to the High Priest, were beautifully typical of the cleansing and absolving of the human race in virtue of our Lord’s Sacrifice. Thus, this miracle, and the proof to which its effects were to be put, brought before His mind the whole scene and mystery of the Passion.
Again, the man who had been healed was in a certain sense a herald to the High Priests and authorities at Jerusalem—a herald whose message might alarm and irritate them, or, on the other hand, console and prepare them for grace, according to the disposition of heart in which they might receive him. Here was another subject for special prayer. For every fresh announcement of God’s marvellous mercy in the Church is in some respects a challenge to faith as well as a message of love, and the truths which were figured in the miracle on the leper involved not only the whole doctrine of the application of the graces of redemption by means of human instruments, but also the correlative duty, on the part of those whose souls were to be healed, of humble submission to the conditions on which it might please God to make the ministration of pardon depend.
There are times of crisis in any spiritual or moral movement when little is said or done, but a great issue is decided in the hearts of men, and these are times when, most of all, the followers of our Lord are called upon, by His example to give themselves to prayer.
His return to Capharnaum
We may suppose that our Lord did not return to Capharnaum until He had allowed ample time to elapse for the effect of this great miracle of the healing of the leper. ‘Again, He entered into Capharnaum,’ says St. Mark, ‘after some days,’ that is, after a considerable period of absence, ‘and it was heard that He was in the house, and many came together, so that there was no room, no, not even at the door, and He spoke to them the word.’
St. Luke’s account is more precise as to the persons of whom the audience was composed. ‘It came to pass on a certain day, as He sat teaching, that there were also Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, that were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was to heal them.’
This is a very remarkable description, and it most certainly signifies that the assembly was to some extent unusual.
Find out why in Part II.
Subscribe now to never miss an article:
The Healing of the Paralytic
Here’s why you should subscribe to The Father Coleridge Reader and share with others:
Fr Coleridge provides solid explanations of the entirety of the Gospel
His work is full of doctrine and piety, and is highly credible
He gives a clear trajectory of the life of Christ, its drama and all its stages—increasing our appreciation and admiration for the God-Man.
If more Catholics knew about works like Coleridge’s, then other works based on sentimentality and dubious private revelations would be much less attractive.
But sourcing and curating the texts, cleaning up scans, and editing them for online reading is a labour of love, and takes a lot of time.
Will you lend us a hand and hit subscribe?
Follow our projects on Twitter, YouTube and Telegram: