93. Fourth Tuesday of Lent

Meditations no. 139 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Our Lord is always ready to help us improve.

Throughout Lent, the liturgy insistently reminds us that we are sinners. The Church, a mother and a teacher, maternally invites us to discover the malice and the weakness that dwell within us. She does not do this to dishearten us at the sight of our personal shortcomings, but rather to move us to repentance and improvement; for the Lord is always ready to help us.

Jesus is never distant or aloof, although sometimes in his preaching he seems very sad, because he is hurt by the evil men do. However, if we watch him closely we will note immediately that his anger comes from love. It is a further invitation for us to leave infidelity and sin behind. “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” says the Lord God, “and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” These words explain Christ’s whole life. They allow us to understand why he has come to us with a heart made of flesh, a heart like ours. This is a convincing proof of his love and a constant witness to the mystery of divine charity. With this confidence, the liturgy makes us exclaim: God is our shelter, our strength, ever ready to help in times of trouble, so we shall not be afraid when the earth gives way, when mountains tumble into the depth of the sea.

In spite of all this, there may be moments when we are especially tired, or when our work or apostolate seems to yield no fruit, or when we find it difficult to practise the Norms of piety. Then the light of this doctrine may be dimmed, and our soul may be oppressed by the weight of its own wretchedness, which has become more obvious. For this reason the Church repeats these encouraging words: The Lord our God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

My children, don’t be anxious about your past mistakes, or the possibility of future faults. Let’s abandon ourselves into God’s merciful hands. Let’s show him the desires of holiness and apostolate which are alive beneath the ashes of our apparent coldness. He is listening to us. You only have to talk.

Humbly asking for God’s help, and making a sincere effort to use all the means available.

The Church continues to console us in the Gospel text she has chosen. After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem, by the Sheep Gate, a pool called in Hebrew Bethsaida, which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed.

The scene must have made a deep impression on those who saw it. St Augustine tells us how the Lord, who is the doctor of souls and of bodies and who has come to heal all those who believed in him, fixed his gaze on one alone among all the sick people there, in order to cure him. It was a sign of special love, like the love Jesus showed us by calling us to the Work from among so many people.

But let us return to the scene: When Jesus saw him, and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” Likewise the Lord saw us helpless in our weakness, and reading the desires latent in our heart, he uttered that sweet summons which, with his grace, we accepted. However, let us look at the poor paralytic man. St John Chrysostom comments: He was not annoyed by the question, nor did he say: “Have you come to insult me, asking me if I want to be cured?” On the contrary, he replied meekly: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going, another steps down before me.” One can see that he did not know who this was who had questioned him; much less that he would cure him. He may have thought that Christ would help him into the water. Instead, Christ showed that his word alone could do everything. Our Lord is always ready to listen to us, but he wants our personal response, shown in the effort we make to get out of any situation which prevents us from following him closely. Our Father taught us that in the interior life there is but one fatal illness, one deadly mistake you can make: to settle for defeat, not to know how to fight with the spirit of a child of God. If this personal effort is lacking, the soul is paralyzed and languishes alone, and is incapable of bearing fruit.

Such cowardice on man’s part puts pressure on our Lord to utter those words addressed to him by the paralytic at the pool of Bethsaida, Hominem non habeo -I have no man to help me!

What a pity if Jesus does not find in you the man or the woman he expects.

Once more, our Lord shows us that his goodness is beyond human calculation. Let us tell him now, simply and plainly: “Yes, Lord, I want to be healed, I want to be freed from this impediment that separates me from you, and prevents me from living to the full the divine life to which you have called me.”

Our petition has to be patient. We should be ready to keep up our ascetic struggle for years.

It is with a very definite purpose in mind that Jesus asks: Vis sanus fieri? - Do you want to be cured? He does not ask in order to find out, says St John Chrysostom; he knows already. It is to manifest the patience of that man who, for thirty-eight years, stayed there without giving up, hoping to be freed from his sickness.

The lesson we can draw from today’s Gospel is one of patience. Patience in the struggle to remove our besetting sin, the defect which makes us cry out, like St Paul: Who will deliver me from this body of death? Patience in our effort to acquire that basic virtue which we find so difficult to attain. We need patience, because Jesus Christ may ask us for a long period of struggle, perhaps even a lifetime of struggle, like the paralytic at the pool, who bore his handicap until he was well on in years. Our Father adds: And it is this very patience that moves us to be understanding with others, for we are convinced that souls, like wine, improve with time.

St Cyprian comments: Patience makes us valuable and keeps us for God. Patience tempers anger, controls the tongue, governs thoughts, keeps peace, regulates the norms of life, breaks the onrush of concupiscence, represses the violence of pride, puts out the fire of hatred … It makes us humble in prosperity, strong in adversity, meek under insults and injury. It teaches us to forgive immediately those who commit transgressions and to pray long and hard for the person who is at fault. Patience conquers temptations; it bears tribulations and martyrdoms to their end. It gives our faith the firmest foundation; it sees that our hope grows to maturity. It directs our actions so that we stay in the path of Christ as we advance with his help. Finally, it is what makes us persevere as children of God.

Our Father warns us: To win the battles of the soul, the best strategy often is to bide one’s time and apply the suitable remedy with patience and perseverance. Make more acts of hope. Let me remind you that in your interior life you will suffer defeats and you will have ups and downs - may God make them imperceptible -because no one is free of these misfortunes. But our all-powerful and merciful Lord has granted us the precise means with which to conquer. As I have already mentioned, all we have to do is to use them, resolving to begin again and again at every moment, should it prove necessary.

Our Lady will obtain for us the fortitude we need in order to fight patiently, beginning over and over again with our hope set on the Lord, in spite of our personal failings.