Mt 9,1-8 – Thursday of the XIII Week of Ordinary Time
The miracle that Jesus performs in today’s Gospel is the healing of a paralytic. Yet Christ’s first gesture does not concern the body, but the heart. In fact he does not say first of all: “Rise and walk”, but: “Courage, son, your sins are forgiven”. Very often we think that the biggest problem in our lives are external woundsdifficulties, limitations or illnesses. Jesus instead reveals to us that there is an even more serious paralysis: that of the heart.
It is the weight of sin, guilt, resentment, shame, of everything that prevents us from living freely. A body can be healthy and a heart completely immobilized. This is why Christ begins there. The first word he addresses to the paralytic is equally significant: “Courage”. God’s forgiveness is not born to humiliate us, but to restore hope to us. Jesus does not look at that man as a guilty person to be condemned, but as a son to be raised up again. Every authentic experience of forgiveness first of all gives us back our identity.
It reminds us that we are loved children, even when we have made mistakes. The scribes are scandalized because they well understand the significance of that gesture. Forgiving sins is something that belongs to God. And this is precisely what Jesus wants to reveal: in Him God came to meet humanity to free us from what no one can take away from us with their own strength. How many dramas arise from a lack of forgiveness. There are those who are unable to forgive others and remain prisoners of resentment. There are those who cannot forgive themselves and continue to live under the weight of their mistakes. There are those who, deep down, cannot believe that God can really start over with them.
But the Gospel announces precisely this possibility. No sin is greater than the mercy of God.
Thursday 2 July 2026 – (Thursday of the 13th Week of Ordinary Time – Even Year)
