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. (Jn 5:1-16)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032123.cfm
In the gospels it’s always good church people who complain about Jesus. The healing of the paralytic is a case in point. The people didn’t doubt that Jesus healed . . . but that he did it on the sabbath was too much for them. As the gospel says, they “began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.” Today’s photo is of the fountain of Bethesda, not in Jerusalem, but rather in New York!
These reflections are a result of more than 40 years of ministry as a Roman Catholic priest. Most of these years I spent in the Diocese of Charlotte which covers Western North Carolina. Now I am retired, and live in Medellín, Colombia where I continue to serve as a priest in the Archdiocese of Medellín.
Tuesday, Week IV, Lent
