One Minute Reflection – 18 January – Friday of the First week in Ordinary Time: Gospel Mark 2:1-12 and the The Memorial of St Margaret of Hungary (1242-1270)
“I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home.” …Mark 2:11
REFLECTION – “None can forgive sins except God alone, and so He who healed them is God… And so that people might understand that He had taken flesh for the remission of their sins and to gain resurrection for their bodies, He said: “That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins on earth” – He then said to the paralytic: “Rise, pick up your stretcher”. It would have been enough to have said: “Rise”, but… He added: “Pick up your stretcher and go home.” First He granted remission of sins, then He manifested the power of the resurrection and then, by making him take up his stretcher, He taught that weakness and pain will no longer afflict the body. Finally, by sending this man home healed, He showed that believers must rediscover the road to paradise, the same road that Adam, the father of all, abandoned when he was spoiled by the stain of sin.”…St Hilary (c.315-367) Father & Doctor of the Church
PRAYER– Living God, You have given me the Eucharist as my food for heavenly life. Help me to partake of it often and so be strengthened on my pilgrim journey on earth. Grant that St Margaret of Hungary, may add us all to her prayers, that by her intercession, we too may learn the true way home. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, in union with the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever, amen.
AnaStpaul 