“Do you want to be made well?” is the question Jesus asks the lame man in today’s Gospel. It is the perennial question he continues to ask us. Like the man in the Gospel, our answer is affirmative, but unlike him, we hesitate to take to steps that lead to a cure.
We realize during quiet, reflective moments that we are wounded or are infected by a worldly virus and how much in need we are of a cure. But we hesitate to take the remedy the physician of our soul prescribes. We put off going to confession.
Remember those Saturday afternoons when the family joined the long lines of those waiting for confession? Like .25 cent movies they are a thing of the past. Why? It is up to the laity to ask because children who do no not see their parents going to confession, will not go either. They’ll become the “nones” to tomorrow.
Resolve: I shall thank Jesus for instituting the Sacrament of Penance and ask him to provide us with an eye-wash that will enable us to see its special need today as I struggle through diseases in the religious, social, political, economic and family crises today.