Daily Gospel Reflection
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March 16, 2021
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.
In this season of Lent, we focus much of our prayer on healing and cleansing; nearly every day of this holy season, the Christian liturgy asks Christ to heal us from our brokenness and cleanse us from our sins. Today’s gospel returns, once more, to this central Lenten theme. Jesus approaches a crippled man at the pool of Bethesda and bestows his healing grace upon him.
Strangely, though, the man does not know who his healer is. He experiences Jesus’ grace, his life is radically changed, and yet he remains ignorant of his savior’s identity.
As we reach the halfway point of Lent, we might ask ourselves: Has our Lenten fasting improved our spiritual vision? Do we recognize Jesus when he approaches us with his grace?
C.S. Lewis conjectured that when we meet Jesus after death, we might be surprised to find him appear like people we knew in our daily life. Then we will realize, to our chagrin, that it was Jesus all along, incarnate in our brothers and sisters, and yet we missed him.
Jesus is here among us this Lent, accompanying us on our 40-day pilgrimage towards Easter. He accompanies us in the disguise of our family members, friends, and colleagues. He waits for us in the distressing disguise of the poor and the marginalized. He longs for us in the tabernacles of our churches. He speaks to us in the Scriptures and in the words of the liturgy. He offers healing, just as he healed the crippled man in today’s Gospel.
Will we recognize him? Will our Lenten fasting attune our eyes to see his face breaking through the veil of our world?
Jesus Christ is in our midst. Let us see and believe.
Prayer
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the healing power of your Son was made manifest through signs and wonders during his earthly ministry. Open our eyes to the ways of grace at work among us in these Lenten days. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
The relics of St. Julian were a powerful aid to prayer in the ancient world. The great “golden-tongued” preacher, St. John Chrysostom, used St. Julian’s life and example as a model for his congregations. Julian’s relics were known to be helpful in exorcising evil spirits.
Julian was a senator from Cilicia, which is in modern-day Turkey. He was arrested in 305 during a persecution of Christians and was subjected to many kinds of torture. He was even paraded around the region for a year as an example to other Christians. He was finally killed by being sewn into a bag full of snakes and scorpions and dumped in the sea. Whether or not this actually happened or is an exaggeration is difficult to tell, but suffice it to say that he suffered and met a painful death. His body was somehow recovered and transferred to Antioch.
One thing is clear: the people of Antioch in the fourth century had a very real and vigorous devotion to St. Julian, and relied upon his intercession. Antioch depended upon water travel for commerce, so perhaps his intercession was sought for sailors and those braving difficult voyages. After all, no voyage could be as terrible as one with snakes and scorpions for sailing companions. Some of St. Julian's relics rest in the reliquary chapel of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame's campus.
St. Julian of Antioch, you were killed by being sewn into a bag full of snakes and scorpions—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Julian of Antioch is in the public domain. Last accessed February 6, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
