The scripture used to begin the gathering was the same as today's, John 5: 1-9, where Jesus asks the lame man at the pool of Bethseda, "Do you want to get well?" It seems a strange question to ask a sick person. Don't we all wish to be perfectly healthy of body, mind and spirit?
Perhaps the question is about our own perspective of health of wholeness, of life and our place in it, our relationship to God and to those around us? Or simply a question meant to focus our awareness on our needs and goals.
The journey to wholeness is a life-long process which includes evaluation and effort, and perhaps some change in how we think and in what we do. Are we doing everything we can to achieve and maintain health? Do we eat good foods, eat in moderation, get enough exercise and rest our bodies, fill our spirits with joy by doing things that create joy in us, examine our emotions and act with reason and wisdom, relating in appropriate and helpful ways to situations and people in our daily routines?
What ailments - physical, spiritual or otherwise - do you need Jesus to treat in your life?
cf. Parish Bulletin, May 5, 2013
For more information on the Order of St. Luke see their website -
http://www.orderofstluke.org/ and http://www.oslcanada.org/
Below image cf. http://jesusfootprints.wordpress.com
Below image cf. http://jesusfootprints.wordpress.com
Below cf. http://www.biblegateway.com/
John 5:1-9
New International Version (NIV)
The Healing at the Pool
5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [b] 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,
Footnotes:
- John 5:2 Some manuscripts Bethzatha; other manuscripts Bethsaida
- John 5:4 Some manuscripts include here, wholly or in part, paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. 4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.
