Gospel: 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 38 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 anymore, 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.
Reflection
This passage talks about the Sabbath in Jerusalem, and how that in Jerusalem there are a great multitude of people who are sick, blind, lame, paralyzed, and people waiting for the moving of the water.
What this passage says to me is that if someone does a good deed for you and takes care of you, staying with you through everything, then you need to repay them. Do everything that you can for that person who took care of you. Maybe, take care of them in a better way than they took care of you.
When Jesus healed the sick man, I feel he was trying to say that when someone else helps you, and puts you on the right path, gather yourself up and make your bed. Take a walk to get on the right path and give something back to that person who did everything for you. It doesn’t have to be right away, but he still would want the feeling of having someone to care for him, to know that someone cares.
To me, the sick man felt badly about Jesus healing him because there wasn’t much for him to do in return for Jesus. And yet, Jesus wanted the sick man to get up and get stronger, so that it would allow him to get on the right path.
Jesus is always going to be there for you. He will never judge you and will always love you, no matter what. In return, he will always want you to do something for someone else and take care of people, and just be a loving person that Jesus made you to be.
Hannah Scott, 16, St. Patrick and St. Teresa parishes, Kankakee
2012 VYC delegate
- One thing that I am doing to this Lenten season, is grow closer to God. I intend to really deepen my conversations with him and talk to him throughout the day, praying more than ever.