WEBVTT 00:00:00.910 --> 00:00:03.169 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 00:00:03.169 --> 00:00:06.830 of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Glory be to Jesus Christ. 00:00:09.369 --> 00:00:13.130 Today's Gospel for the second Sunday of Lent, 00:00:13.169 --> 00:00:16.769 also the commemoration of St. Gregory Palamas, 00:00:17.070 --> 00:00:21.289 is taken from the second chapter of St. Mark's 00:00:21.289 --> 00:00:25.929 Gospel. Just to put this event, which we have 00:00:25.929 --> 00:00:29.530 heard about the... Curing of the paralyzed man 00:00:29.530 --> 00:00:34.689 into perspective. In chapter 1, Jesus is baptized. 00:00:35.469 --> 00:00:39.689 He calls Peter and Andrew and James and John. 00:00:40.409 --> 00:00:46.369 He rebukes unclean spirits. He taught as one 00:00:46.369 --> 00:00:50.710 who had authority. And he cures Peter's mother 00:00:50.710 --> 00:00:55.229 -in -law and a leper. Now we get down in chapter 00:00:55.229 --> 00:01:00.030 2. to the event which we have heard in today's 00:01:00.030 --> 00:01:06.569 gospel, the healing of the paralyzed man. This 00:01:06.569 --> 00:01:12.129 raises acutely the question of Jesus' identity. 00:01:12.510 --> 00:01:17.849 Who is he? Who is this fellow who teaches with 00:01:17.849 --> 00:01:21.709 authority? And especially in today's, who is 00:01:21.709 --> 00:01:24.750 this person that thinks he can forgive sins? 00:01:26.159 --> 00:01:29.799 Jesus knew what the scribes and Pharisees were 00:01:29.799 --> 00:01:33.060 thinking and reasoning in their hearts. Jesus 00:01:33.060 --> 00:01:38.719 had divine knowledge. Only God knows what goes 00:01:38.719 --> 00:01:43.099 on in our heart and mind. The good and the bad 00:01:43.099 --> 00:01:46.299 angels, they're pretty good guessers by our attitudes, 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:50.219 what we look at, how we talk, whatever. So they're 00:01:50.219 --> 00:01:55.439 pretty good at figuring it out. Knowledge of 00:01:55.439 --> 00:02:00.319 the heart. And so Jesus says to the people there, 00:02:00.459 --> 00:02:03.900 after he says to the paralyzed man, your sins 00:02:03.900 --> 00:02:08.639 are forgiven. Well, maybe people thought, well, 00:02:08.719 --> 00:02:14.840 okay, what else? And he looks around, knows what's 00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:18.300 in the hearts of the scribes and Pharisees, and 00:02:18.300 --> 00:02:22.900 he says, which is easier to do? To forgive sins? 00:02:23.770 --> 00:02:28.370 or to say, rise up, take up your bed, and walk. 00:02:29.569 --> 00:02:34.189 And so that you may know that the Son of Man 00:02:34.189 --> 00:02:38.550 has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said 00:02:38.550 --> 00:02:42.789 to the paralyzed man, rise, take up your bed, 00:02:42.870 --> 00:02:48.509 and walk. This identifies who Jesus is, the Son 00:02:48.509 --> 00:02:54.210 of Man, the Messiah, God incarnate. who has the 00:02:54.210 --> 00:02:58.949 power to forgive sins, proven by the miracle 00:02:58.949 --> 00:03:03.289 that he performs, the raising of the paralyzed 00:03:03.289 --> 00:03:08.750 man. The people, this is a common theme in St. 00:03:08.770 --> 00:03:12.069 Mark's Gospel. After almost all the miracles, 00:03:12.270 --> 00:03:15.189 the people are astonished, they're amazed, and 00:03:15.189 --> 00:03:21.110 they glorify God. All those miracles that Jesus 00:03:21.110 --> 00:03:26.780 performed, In one of St. Augustine's sermons, 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:32.639 he poses a rhetorical question. What's the greatest 00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:36.460 miracle that Jesus performed? Now, he does that 00:03:36.460 --> 00:03:41.840 because his congregation in the year about 400 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:47.099 probably thought what many of us 1 ,600 years 00:03:47.099 --> 00:03:51.120 later think. Why did all those miracles take 00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:54.439 place with Jesus? And then in the Acts of the 00:03:54.439 --> 00:03:58.580 Apostles, the apostles continued Jesus' ministry 00:03:58.580 --> 00:04:03.659 of forgiving sins and performing miracles. And 00:04:03.659 --> 00:04:09.879 the growth of the church was accompanied by extraordinary 00:04:09.879 --> 00:04:14.520 events, prophesying, speaking in tongues, whatever 00:04:14.520 --> 00:04:18.180 all of that meant. Prophesying, of course, is 00:04:18.180 --> 00:04:20.579 interpreting scripture. That's a technical word. 00:04:20.889 --> 00:04:22.970 for prophesying, not for telling the future. 00:04:24.470 --> 00:04:28.290 And the people then were puzzled, undoubtedly, 00:04:28.410 --> 00:04:31.730 because we raise that same question, too. Well, 00:04:31.790 --> 00:04:34.750 why did Jesus did this in the first generation 00:04:34.750 --> 00:04:38.029 of the church, these miracles took place, and 00:04:38.029 --> 00:04:42.889 now, apparently, the miracles are less frequent 00:04:42.889 --> 00:04:49.879 and much less obvious. So knowing this, St. Augustine 00:04:49.879 --> 00:04:53.060 raises that question. What was the greatest miracle 00:04:53.060 --> 00:04:57.439 that Jesus performed? Now let's have some congregational 00:04:57.439 --> 00:05:04.519 participation. Who wants to pose an answer to 00:05:04.519 --> 00:05:07.600 that question of St. Augustine's? What was the 00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:12.019 greatest miracle that Jesus performed? Three 00:05:12.019 --> 00:05:18.519 guesses. Come on, folks. Come on. Oh, yeah, that's 00:05:18.519 --> 00:05:20.959 a common one, resurrection. Okay, giving sight 00:05:20.959 --> 00:05:24.980 to the blind. You know, to me, I'd rather not 00:05:24.980 --> 00:05:29.100 be able to walk or not be able to hear. Sometimes 00:05:29.100 --> 00:05:32.560 for a married person, that's a blessing. That's 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:35.879 why God lets older people get a little hard of 00:05:35.879 --> 00:05:40.360 hearing. But I think sight is the one sense that 00:05:40.360 --> 00:05:44.000 I would really feel deprived of if I didn't have 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:47.319 that. So people give all kinds of answers. Normally 00:05:47.319 --> 00:05:51.560 that one, the resurrection. But St. Augustine 00:05:51.560 --> 00:05:56.959 says, uh -uh -uh. The real greatest miracle and 00:05:56.959 --> 00:06:03.220 the clue is in this gospel passage. Augustine 00:06:03.220 --> 00:06:06.899 says, the greatest miracle that Jesus performed 00:06:06.899 --> 00:06:10.620 is the one that the church continues to perform 00:06:10.620 --> 00:06:14.689 to our day. which is the forgiveness of people's 00:06:14.689 --> 00:06:20.110 sins. That is the greatest miracle. By far better 00:06:20.110 --> 00:06:24.149 than any physical cure is the spiritual cure 00:06:24.149 --> 00:06:29.750 of those of us who are paralyzed, maybe not physically, 00:06:29.949 --> 00:06:34.689 but paralyzed by sin. The forgiveness of sins. 00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:40.560 In one of Jesus' post -resurrectional appearances, 00:06:40.600 --> 00:06:45.639 as recorded in St. John's Gospel, Jesus appears 00:06:45.639 --> 00:06:48.899 to his frightened disciples who are behind closed 00:06:48.899 --> 00:06:53.639 and locked doors, and he breathes on them and 00:06:53.639 --> 00:06:57.459 says, Receive the Holy Spirit, you know this 00:06:57.459 --> 00:07:02.000 passage, whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven, 00:07:02.339 --> 00:07:06.240 and whose sins you retain, they are retained. 00:07:06.990 --> 00:07:10.889 So that authority of Jesus, his divine authority 00:07:10.889 --> 00:07:15.769 to forgive sins, was entrusted to his disciples 00:07:15.769 --> 00:07:21.009 and to the church until his second coming. The 00:07:21.009 --> 00:07:25.769 forgiveness of sins. And if you notice, just 00:07:25.769 --> 00:07:29.550 about every one of our sacraments entails, in 00:07:29.550 --> 00:07:33.709 one way or another, that common central theme 00:07:33.709 --> 00:07:37.860 or idea. of the forgiveness of sins. Baptism 00:07:37.860 --> 00:07:42.579 is obvious, forgiveness of sins. You know, the 00:07:42.579 --> 00:07:46.939 Eucharist also, when the priest repeats Jesus' 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:51.500 words over the bread and the wine, take this, 00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:54.600 all of you, and eat of it. This is my body, which 00:07:54.600 --> 00:07:57.660 is broken for you, what? For the forgiveness 00:07:57.660 --> 00:08:01.639 of sins. Drink ye all of this. This is the cup 00:08:01.639 --> 00:08:04.660 of my blood of the new covenant. which is shed 00:08:04.660 --> 00:08:08.500 for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. 00:08:10.040 --> 00:08:13.680 And then, of course, the sacraments of penance 00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:18.860 and holy unction are very obvious. Penance, of 00:08:18.860 --> 00:08:22.139 course, because it's directed precisely for the 00:08:22.139 --> 00:08:25.959 forgiveness of sins after baptism. Holy unction 00:08:25.959 --> 00:08:30.759 is also, we sometimes think of it primarily as 00:08:30.759 --> 00:08:34.659 the anointing with oil. to bring about physical 00:08:34.659 --> 00:08:39.000 healing. But if you look at the prayers, the 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:43.860 primary thing that's requested is the forgiveness 00:08:43.860 --> 00:08:49.240 of sins. The forgiveness of sins is accomplished 00:08:49.240 --> 00:08:54.980 through Jesus' grace in the church by the ministry 00:08:54.980 --> 00:08:58.039 of the priesthood, which he entrusted to the 00:08:58.039 --> 00:09:03.120 church. But St. Ambrose, Actually, he was a contemporary 00:09:03.120 --> 00:09:08.000 of Augustine. Ambrose's preaching in Milan was 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:11.919 responsible for, by and large, for the conversion 00:09:11.919 --> 00:09:16.340 of St. Augustine to Christianity. But St. Ambrose 00:09:16.340 --> 00:09:20.240 reminds his congregation and reminds us also 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:25.860 1 ,600 years later. This is what he says. In 00:09:25.860 --> 00:09:30.899 their ministry of the forgiveness of sins, do 00:09:30.899 --> 00:09:35.220 not exercise this right of their own individual 00:09:35.220 --> 00:09:41.120 power. Not in their name, but in the name of 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:44.620 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit do they forgive 00:09:44.620 --> 00:09:51.120 sins. They ask, but God forgives. The gift comes 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:59.799 from the power on high. And this idea is expressed 00:09:59.799 --> 00:10:03.519 very clearly in the prayers of absolution. I'm 00:10:03.519 --> 00:10:05.879 sure you listen to them after you go to confession. 00:10:06.460 --> 00:10:09.980 There are several different forms. The one that 00:10:09.980 --> 00:10:13.379 I memorized as a young priest and the one I use 00:10:13.379 --> 00:10:17.960 is a so -called later Russian prayer, which concludes, 00:10:18.220 --> 00:10:21.480 And may our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, 00:10:21.620 --> 00:10:24.860 through his grace and love for mankind, forgive 00:10:24.860 --> 00:10:28.980 you, my child, all your transgressions. And I, 00:10:29.019 --> 00:10:32.059 an unworthy priest, through the power given unto 00:10:32.059 --> 00:10:35.379 me by him, do forgive and absolve you of all 00:10:35.379 --> 00:10:37.960 your sins. In the name of the Father, and of 00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:41.419 the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So St. 00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:45.220 Mark's Gospel, as we see here, raises this question 00:10:45.220 --> 00:10:50.220 of who Jesus is. Not just a miracle worker without 00:10:50.220 --> 00:10:54.440 any particular focus or purpose, but a miracle 00:10:54.440 --> 00:11:00.370 worker who brings about faith, or who strengthens 00:11:00.370 --> 00:11:03.769 the faith of those present when he performs these 00:11:03.769 --> 00:11:07.490 physical miracles. And this forgiveness of sins 00:11:07.490 --> 00:11:12.769 he offers to us day by day, year by year, through 00:11:12.769 --> 00:11:16.610 the sacraments of the Church. To him be glory 00:11:16.610 --> 00:11:19.289 and honor forever and ever. Amen.