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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
Today on the second Sunday of Great Lent, the Church opens before us the well-known page of the Holy Gospel about the cure of a paralytic man.
Four men were carrying a stretcher with this sick man but when they came up to the house where the Saviour was, they couldn’t enter because of the crowd.
However, despite this, they didn’t step back but climbed up the roof with the stretcher, stripped the roof and lowered the stretcher into the room. Let’s think who were those people carrying the stretcher.
The Holy Gospel doesn’t say that they were relatives: the children of the sick man, a mother, a father, brothers, but it simply said that there were four of them. They were simply his friends, maybe – neighbors. They did their best not for themselves but for the sick man. After all, not every man will try to climb up the roof of somebody else’s house, strip it, lift the stretcher with a sick man there and then lower it with the help of ropes. We can imagine how inconvenient and hard it was. But at any price they wanted to get into the house where Christ was. And Christ saw their faith in this effort and diligence. And the main thing that He saw was, of course, the love towards this man. They were fussing not about themselves but about him, they were waiting for his cure and believed that only the Lord Jesus could save this man who lay on the stretcher as a dead man.
My dear brothers and sisters! Here before us is a good example for the fast. The example, that only together people can be saved, supporting each other, loving, believing, helping and then God will help each of us. Because as He himself gets us out from the depth of sin, so He wants us to help each other. Sometimes we can’t help by outward works, but we can help by inner ones, to help by a prayer. Every day prayer for each other, relatives, friends and even for enemies must be pronounced with such persistence and love as those people, carrying a paralytic man, tried to get into the house where Christ was.
Our laziness, tiredness everyday cares will constantly prevent us from doing it. It will seem for us that we aren’t praying but are loading stones. And at this moment we should recall today’s Gospel reading, recall that it was very difficult to lift the stretcher with a paralytic man to the roof of the house. But Christ saw their faith and love and rewarded them.
The thing is that we won’t recall the works we did two days ago; our short life which we should value is filled with rubbish. And all this separates us from our Lord, covers the sky, the prayer as smoke from chimney, when rising covers the sunlight. And what is smoke? It is tiny black particles. So is our endless fuss as smoke rises and covers everything, and our life becomes useless and vain.
Lent is special time for a prayer. Let’s get our breath and as the Holy Gospel teaches us bring the Lord a prayer for each other but not for ourselves, our health, salvation, well-being, but for our relatives, friends, for all those who are dear to our heart. And then all of us joining hands by this prayer and love will rise higher and higher to the Lord. And Christ seeing our faith will tell all those for whom we prayed and will tell us for whom others prayed, “My child, wake up from your dream and sickness, weakness, spiritual paralysis, get up, your sins are forgiven”. Amen.