Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 13, 10-17
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath.
And a woman was there who for eighteen years
had been crippled by a spirit;
she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect.
When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said,
“Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.”
He laid his hands on her,
and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.
But the leader of the synagogue,
indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath,
said to the crowd in reply,
“There are six days when work should be done.
Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day.”
The Lord said to him in reply, “Hypocrites!
Does not each one of you on the sabbath
untie his ox or his ass from the manger
and lead it out for watering?
This daughter of Abraham,
whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now,
ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day
from this bondage?”
When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated;
and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.
Jesus taught
1. For eighteen years. Many times, we want everything to happen quickly, but everything has its time. For many years this woman had been suffering from an illness that did not allow her to face life. Today, consider how long you have been hunched over in your life, so much so that you cannot look to the future, you cannot move ahead. What is it that doesn’t allow you to look forward and walk through this life with ease? If you’ve been like this for so long, don’t you need help? Let go of what has been weighing you down for years. Time passes and you continue to be in the same situation. You have to do something with your life.
2. She couldn’t straighten up. We all have burdens and ailments. I think you know what you have inside of you and that weighs you down today. One thing is to carry life with all its weight, but quite another thing is to feel that you cannot carry that weight, to feel you cannot look forward, and that the only thing you can look at is your navel or nothing at all. When you can’t look forward towards a goal in life, you see that everything seems the same, there is a certain monotony. Then the three elements that can “kill” you appear: everything is the same; there is nothing to fight for, and the pain is always there.
3. Glorified God. Put your trust in God today! Ask Him to help you. Start straightening yourself up; build firmness within yourself; show a positive attitude, even though it may hurt and bother you. Control yourself, challenge yourself, and go for it! It’s time for you to stop looking down at the floor crying because you can’t see forward. Straighten up first. That requires discipline, a positive attitude, and spiritual strength. Then, look ahead, set a goal, and write that goal down on paper, if necessary. Look where you want to go in your life and don’t go where others want to take you. It’s time for you to start and today is a great opportunity!
Remember that something good is on the way!
God bless you, be with you and protect you in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
