Third Sunday

Sunday of the Paralytic

In the Syriac Orthodox Church, we celebrate the third Sunday of Great Lend as 'Paralytic Sunday'. On this Sunday we commemorate the healing of the Paralytic who was lowered into a house. In this passage we see Christ teaching us that he has authority to forgive sin. There is also another important teaching for us in this passage. In the Gospel Reading (Mark 2: 5) we read : "When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." The Gospel does not tell us anything about the faith of the paralytic. The Gospel does not even tell us if the Paralytic had the ability to speak or if his ability to speak was lost. Our Lord healed the Paralytic seeing the faith of those four men who carried the Paralytic.

In one sense we were all paralytics, not capable to move on our own when we were little. Our parents and our Godparents carried us to Christ to receive baptism. They carried us to receive the Holy Communion. In their prayers for us they carried us to God. In our faith the saints and St. Mary the Mother of our Lord also carry us to our Lord through their prayers. We also have a responsibility to carry others to Christ, by prayer for them and by ministering to them.

Readings:

Before Holy Qurbana

• Ezekiel 34: 1-16(God the True Shepherd)
• Exodus4 : 10 - 17
• II Kings 2 : 1 - 11(Elijah ascends to Heaven)
• Isaiah 5:20-25

Holy Qurbana

• Acts 5:12-16. 19: 8 -12
• Romans 5:1-11
• 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10(St. Paul's thorn in the flesh)
• St. Mark 2:1-12

Homily : by Mor Ivanious (St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople) on the pralytic let down through the roof.

Listen to Homily : by Fr. Thomas Hopko, Dean Emeritus of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary

Qurbana Hymns of the day

After the Gospel (Hymn about Jesus healing a man paralyzed for 38 years at the pool of Bethesda John 5: 1- 15)

Homily : by Mor Ivanious (St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople) on the pralytic at the pool of Bethesda.

Mor Ivanious says:

“Now there is at Jerusalem a sheep pool, called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk,of halt, blind, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.”

What manner of cure is this? What mystery doth it signify to us? For these things are not written carelessly, or without a purpose, but as by a figure and type they show in outline things to come, in order that what was exceedingly strange might not by coming unexpectedly harm among the many the power of faith. What then is it that they show in outline? A Baptism was about to be given, possessing much power, and the greatest of gifts, a Baptism purging all sins, and making men alive instead of dead.

Yet as here it was not simply the nature of the water that healed, (for then this would have always taken place,) but water joined to the operation of the Angel; so in our case, it is not merely the water that worketh, but when it hath received the grace of the Spirit, then it putteth away all our sins.

Kasolikki (Kushtam Poondor Sowkhyam Needi..)