Today's Gospel in Jesus of Nazareth: Forgiving the Sins of the Paralytic

In Jesus of Nazareth: Infancy Narratives (pp. 44-45) Pope Benedict points out Jesus' priority of forgiveness (as indicated by the very meaning of His name: Jesus = "Yahweh is salvation") by referring to the scene of today's gospel (Lk. 5:17-26, cf. Mk. 2:5).

Christ, by first forgiving the sins of the crippled man, clearly maintains..."the priority of forgiveness for sins as the foundation of all true healing.

"Man is a relational being.  And if his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed--his relationship with God--then nothing else can be truly in order.  This is where the priority lies in Jesus' message and ministry: before all else, he wants to point man toward the essence of his malady, and to show him--if you are not healed there, then however many good things you  many find, you are not truly healed.

"In this sense, the explanation of Jesus' name that was offered to Joseph in his dream already contains a fundamental clarification of how man's salvation has to be understood and hence what the Savior's essentail task must be."

Heal the soul.  Fix your relationship with God.  That is everything.  "The flesh profiteth nothing, it is the spirit that gives life."  Or as we heard at the end of yesterday's gospel: "All flesh [needs to] see the salvation of God!" Lk. 3:6