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One
day as Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were
sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and
Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was with him for healing. And some
men brought on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed; they were trying to
bring him in and set him in his presence. But not finding a way to
bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered
him on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle in front of
Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said, “As for you, your sins
are forgiven.”... He said to the man who was paralyzed, “I
say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.” He stood
up immediately before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and
went home, glorifying God. Then astonishment seized them all and they
glorified God, and, struck with awe, they said, “We have seen
incredible things today.”
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Howie Day sings in his
song “Collide”: “Even the best fall down sometimes,
even the wrong words seem to rhyme; out of the doubt that fills my
mind, I somehow find you and I collide. I’m quiet, you know; you
make a first impression. I’ve found I’m scared to know
I’m always on your mind." He is singing that even though things
don’t always seem to work out, somehow they do for people who are
in love--they "collide" into life and love.
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We don’t know the mind of the
paralyzed man and his friends who were his stretcher-bearers in
Luke’s miracle story, but we know their actions and we know the
results of their faith. Making the decision to do something quite
unconventional, they had no idea of what results would follow. They
wanted to be near this miracle worker, and the only way was to
physically remove the obstacles in their way.
Love relationships are that way. People who are falling in love have no idea of what the results will be--how their lives will be shaped, whether they will be happy, or whether their choice will end up in pain and breakup. But they know that they have to make the attempt. They know that they have to work with the obstacles. Such is the nature of discovering love. Howie Day sings about it in his song “Collide.” Not knowing how it will turn out, he moves into the area of discovering whether another person could be the person he could love in a permanent way. We know that we want things to work out. We want a good life. We want a fulfilled life. As we set out with the circumstances of our lives, our schooling, our parent backgrounds, the breaks we receive or do not receive, the decisions, the missed opportunities, we collide into life, and we live our lives. Mature people will accept the situations of their lives, and direct the “colliding” that happens to bring out the very best they can. When we do it with the involvement of Jesus, as in the Gospel story, we can count on the help that we need. |
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THOUGHT
What are the most important characteristics
of a person who wants to develop a mature fulfilled life?
PRAYER Good and gracious God, we
collide into our lives because we do not really know how we will
develop. As we live, give us the grace to completely accept you and
your Son’s guidance, and help us be the best that we can possibly
be. Be with us, we pray.
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©2007 Capuchin
Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America |