The Sunday of the Paralytic

This Sunday has an important message. The whole concept of illness and sin.
Is there a relationship between sin and illness. There can be. We see many people suffering because of alcoholism or drug abuse. This isa illness as a result of personal sin. We see people who suffer because they have had to work in environments that are unsafe and perhaps filled with poison. The sin is the employer's. He has a duty of care.

War is not a heroic or exciting thing. The reality is that it is simply dangerous and people die in wars. Inevitably war brings immense suffering. The sin here is the responsibility of old men who sent young men to do the fighting, and incident's the dying. There was a joke in the German army during the WW2, that the people who got their medals behind the lines, should wear them on their backs. The poor soldier on the front lines is doomed to suffer because those older than him cannot find peace.

However, most suffering is involuntary and not as a result of sin. Usually it is the result of the general sin that is in the world, the consequence of the Fall of Adam. This is part of our general human condition and this can happen to anyone.

Christ tells us in today's gospel, that if we have faith we can be healed from physical and spiritual infirmaty.

It is our responsibility as Christians to constantly pray for violence to cease being a part of the reality of our lives. War and violence are not a consequence of the Grace of God. They are a consequence of sin. Let us pray today that the Grace of God rules the daily life of the world and not violence, which is a consequence of sin.
Right Rev. Olexander Kenez