Friday, January 15, 2021 - First week in Ordinary Time - A great prophet arose among us, and God visited his people - Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 2, 1-12

Dear Christians! As we have been told repeatedly during this first week of Ordinary Time, where Jesus begins the mission that the Father has entrusted to Him, and during which He healed many people, and Mark reports to us many of these great and miraculous works that Jesus a fulfilled, which on the other hand could not be fulfilled without faith. For faith also means recognizing and accepting these great wonders. Like this Gospel, Pope Francis calls on us, through his catechism "Healing the World", not to look indifferently at the sick and the weak around us, but that we must help them and help each other.

His neighbors not only looked at this paralytic man, but did everything to bring him to Jesus to be healed. All this is a surge of faith: the faith of the paralytic, but also the faith of those who have taken pains to carry it. When we are motivated by faith, we find all the means to come to the aid of our neighbors, whatever the obstacles. Here faith, sickness, and sin are closely related, and the result of this relationship is forgiveness. We have already said that forgiveness is an authority given by God for Jesus and transmitted to his envoys and their successors, so let us be confident, in particular in the forgiveness that we expect from the merciful God and keep ourselves from the attitude of certain scribes . Either way, faith is the most important. It is by faith that we can obtain healing from diseases; it is by faith that our sins are forgiven and we obtain mercy; and it is always this same faith that motivates us to take the many measures necessary for our salvation to be accomplished. Grace is not compatible with inertia and does not allow us to be inert, it requires so much effort from us, so always work together to help each other and lead us to life and not point to perdition.