TODAY’S GOSPEL READING
1 APRIL, 2025
John 5:1-16
There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
“Do you want to be well?”
The sick man answered him,
“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”
Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
Now that day was a sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured,
“It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”
He answered them, “The man who made me well told me,
‘Take up your mat and walk.'”
They asked him,
“Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”
The man who was healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
“Look, you are well; do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
The man went and told the Jews
that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus
because he did this on a sabbath.
THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD!
REFLECTION
A man was suffering for thirty eight years, lying in a mat beside a pool which was known of its healing miracles and many were coming to that pool. These people include the blind, the lame and the paralyzed and all of them were so eager to be healed. When Jesus saw this sick man, He felt compassion for He knew the longevity of the suffering of that man which is why He healed him and it happened during the Sabbath.
Truly, the experience of this sick man brought hope into my heart. Imagine how he suffered for thirty eight years and in an instant he was healed by our King. One more thing is when I realized that we do not need anything when it comes to healing for Jesus is enough, all we need is to come to Him with humility, be firmed in our faith and put that faith into practice through our good deeds.
The fact, that the love of God towards us is too great but due to our prideful hearts, we often commit sins that distant us from Him. Yet Jesus is the most merciful of all for despite of our sinful ways, still He is waiting with an open arms. And our response is to repent and convert, and sin no more just as how He instructed the sickman who was healed for indeed the sins that we committed are the things that make our souls unclean and it will lead us to be spiritually and physically ill. Hence, our active spiritual life will hasten the healing that we want, while receiving the Sacraments is a must as we keep in touch with the Lord through the Gospel that we read daily. Truly in this way we will be able to achieve the purity of our souls and at the same way we will be åhealed in body, mind and spirit.
PRAYER
I know everytime I come at your tabernacle there is healing O God. Yet everything will be achieved if I undergo true repentance and true conversion so it will be easy for your Holy Spirit to penetrate in me and heal not only my bodily pain rather, it’s my spirit that needs more guidance. Amen
