Opening Prayer Series: Collect of 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time.

The Collect of the 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time reads as follows:

Let us pray,

Grant we pray almighty God,

that always pondering spiritual things

we may carry out in both word and deed

that which is pleasing to You.

through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,

who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God for ever and ever. 

In making this prayer tangible for during the week, the following reflection questions emerged:

1. What are the spiritual things that I will ponder upon this coming week?
2. What is pleasing to God?
3. What areas in my life in word are not yet pleasing to God?
4. How might I address these areas in my life this coming week?
5. What areas of my life in deed are not yet pleasing to God?
6. How might I address these areas this coming week?
7. How will I prepare for Lent-what spiritual goals will I set for my Lenten observance in prayer, fasting and almsgiving?

Today's Gospel is of the healing of the paralytic. It is interesting to note in this passage from scripture that it seems to be more about the faith of bystanders and scribes, rather than the paralytic. This is in contrast with many of the other healing stories in scripture where the person needing healing is engaged in the process.  Obviously the paralytic had faith  in Jesus to allow himself to be lowered through the roof as did those 4 men who lowered him. Their desire to get the paraytic to Jesus is evident.

However, we are presented with the views of the bystanders especially the scribes. In those days, the correlation between sins being forgiven and healing was strong. In many ways, even in our own time,  there is still a correlation between ''spiritual illness'' and physical illness, although the thinking in relation to this is not as strong as in the time of Jesus.  

However, in our time, we would be foolish to ignore the health of our soul since many of our sins do have an effect on our physical and emotional wellbeing.  For example: a person who is trapped in the addiction of overeating/smoking/drinking will suffer as a consequence of this sin of lack of temperance, physical side effects.

This is the last Sunday of ordinary time before we head into the season of Lent on this coming Wednesday- Ash Wednesday.  As we hear today's Gospel, we may wish to think of the quality of our faith and consider what we intend to do to come closer to God during the season of Lent. We may also wish to consider the state of our soul as examine any sins which have a direct or indirect correlation to our physical and emotional health.  This review may prove to be a worthy starting point for our choice of action in prayer/fasting and almsgiving that the church asks of us during Lent.

Let us be like the bystanders and praise God for all the astounding things God does for us in our lives.