Father Csaba’s reflection on the gospel……
Tuesday 28 March 2017
"Sir, I have no man…” We hear this cry for help from so many places ! Many lonely people are suffering and there is no-one to help them ! Many-many children speechless, silently without a tear in their eyes, are screaming out asking for our help ! Uncared for regions, ruined building are also calling out silently , asking for our help! Whole nations , people are calling out for just peace, honouring their freedom , order providing them with security, genuine, comforting , real humane words !
I admire Jesus’ behaviour , He interrupts His journey , goes to the man humbly and addresses him:"Do you want to be healed?” Yes Jesus steps out from His own world and offers His help , He does not break the man’s door down and when he asks for His help , then without any further ado , He tells the man who’s been paralyzed for 38 years : "Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.”
May God grant us by breaking through the walls of our selfish world enclosing us within ourselves , we discover our brethren around us, crying out for help , hearing their often not even loudly uttered complaints and with resolution, vigorously can be helpful to them! Many are dumbfounded , they do not dare , they cannot say out , perhaps cannot even put it into words what is is that is hurting them, they just suffer all alone !
Bethesda is all around us , get going to the needy, in your surrounding asking for help now ! Yes reading this reflection stand up, get going or at least give a phone call to someone, who will be happy hearing your comforting , encouraging words ! Step outside your comfort zone , the solitude of your selfishness , from among those walls that you only think will protect you but in actual fact they strangle your soul thirsting for love, goodness and joy, do a good deed out of love !
Have a great journey,
Father Csaba
translated by dr k.e.
Picture: In our child protection home in Petrozsény named after the Sacred Heart of Jesus there is a chapel that was desecrated , destroyed during communism . For many years they kept it for the miners to hold the atheist teachings there, then in rubble it was left there! We tidied up the chapel , but we feel that God wants us to renew it, put it back in order so that the Hungarians living in the Zsil valley have a representative hall where not only can they pray there, but every now and then hold presentations, plays ! As far as I am concerned this desecrated chapel is still silently calling out for help. !!!!
1After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.2Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Beth-za'tha, which has five porticoes.3In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed.5One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years.6When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?"7The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me."8Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your pallet, and walk."9And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked. Now that day was the sabbath.10So the Jews said to the man who was cured, "It is the sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your pallet."11But he answered them, "The man who healed me said to me, `Take up your pallet, and walk.'"12They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, `Take up your pallet, and walk'?"13Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.14Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, "See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you."15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.16And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the sabbath.
John 5, 1-16
Father Csaba’s reflection on the gospel……