The healing of the paralytic man … a fresco in Analipsi Church in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are a third of the way through the Season of Advent and yesterday was the Second Sunday of Advent. Today, the Calendar of the Church of England marks the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (8 December).
Before today day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
A blessing in the Chapel of the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 5: 17-26 (NRSVA):
17 One day, while he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting nearby (they had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem); and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. 18 Just then some men came, carrying a paralysed man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; 19 but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus. 20 When he saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven you.’ 21 Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, ‘Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ 22 When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say, “Your sins are forgiven you”, or to say, “Stand up and walk”? 24 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ – he said to the one who was paralysed—‘I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home.’ 25 Immediately he stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God. 26 Amazement seized all of them, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, ‘We have seen strange things today.’
I have had a number of hospital and clinic visits during this past year, including the John Radcliffe Hospital and the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, Milton Keynes University Hospital, and University College Hospital, London. Almost all these visits have been part of the follow-up care and attention I continue to receive following my stroke almost four years ago in March 2022.
I remain truly grateful for the caring and attentive treatment I received in Milton Keynes University Hospital and in the John Radcliffe Hospital after that stroke. And I am even more grateful for the way Charlotte Hunter recognised I was having a stroke, brought me to hospital, ensured I received the attention I needed, visited me every day, and brought me back to Stony Stratford.
Some years ago, at an event in
Saint Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, when people were asked to bring along their favourite poems, Charlotte brought Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Miracle’, from his collection
Human Chain (2010).
In these poems, written after his stroke in 2005, Seamus Heaney speaks of suffering and mortality. This poem ‘Miracle’ retells the story of the miraculous healing of the man variously described as a paralytic man and a man with palsy. The story is told in all three synoptic Gospels, including this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 5: 17-26), and – like Seamus Heaney, I suppose – my situation makes me wonder whether this man was also suffering after a stroke.
It is interesting how Heaney tells the story of healing and this man from the perspective of the man’s friends. In this way, his poem becomes an expression of gratitude by the poet to all who helped his recovery after his stroke.
When Jesus looks at the paralysed man brought to him by his friends, he sees not just the faith of the man, but the faith of his friends too. In other words, this is a story of the blessing of friendship and the miracle of community as much as it is a story of miraculous healing.
Heaney’s focus is on neither Christ as the healer nor the invalid, but on the friends who helped this sick man to reach Jesus by lowering him through a skylight in the roof. The title of the poem refers to the miracle in the Gospel story, but for the poet the miracle is found in the opening lines:
Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
But the ones who have known him all along
And carry him in.
The friends of this man love him and seek his healing, no matter what it takes for them to do, and so they become the true miracle at this moment. They are there when no one else is, they care for their friend, and they give him the priceless gift of friendship.
When they hear in Capernaum that Jesus is healing the sick, they give their friend one more gift. They carry him to Jesus. And when they cannot get him through the door, they then lower him through the roof.
What persistent love they show their friend, like the persistent love of one who calls a taxi, packs all my bags, brings me to the A&E unit, stays with me while I am admitted, transferred to the emergency unit, and then, late at night, when I am moved to a ward.
This poem sees the Gospel story through the eyes of this man’s faithful friends. So often, I read this story through the eyes of the paralysed man, through the eyes of the crowd, or even through the eyes of the Pharisees and teachers. But Seamus Heaney invites me to join the man’s friends, who stand with
their shoulders numb, the ache and stoop deeplocked
In their backs, the stretcher handles
Slippery with sweat.
We are invited to stand with those friends, with the hope and the faith and the love that brings them there, to stand with them on behalf of all who hurt, to feel the burn in their hands from the paid-out rope, the ache in their backs from the burden they have carried, to see the gift of this miracle, this grace, that was all gift, but that required something extra of them.
There are many miracles in this story and many lessons. This poem reminds us how sometimes we need to be carried by our friends, while at other times we are the ones who need to help ‘bear one another’s burdens’ (Galatians 6: 2).
Miracle, by Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)
Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
But the ones who have known him all along
And carry him in —
Their shoulders numb, the ache and stoop deeplocked
In their backs, the stretcher handles
Slippery with sweat. And no let up
Until he’s strapped on tight, made tiltable
and raised to the tiled roof, then lowered for healing.
Be mindful of them as they stand and wait
For the burn of the paid out ropes to cool,
Their slight lightheadedness and incredulity
To pass, those who had known him all along.
A sign of hope in the Chapel in Milton Keynes University Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Today’s Prayers (Monday 8 December 2025):
The theme this week (7 to 13 December 2025) in
Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Divine Sufficiency’ (pp 8-9). This theme was introduced yesterday with Reflections from the Revd Neli Miranda, Vicar at Saint James the Apostle in Guatemala City and Professor of Theology at the University Mariano Gálvez of Guatemala.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 8 December 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord, as your word says, ‘He defends the cause of the poor and needy’ (Psalm 140: 12), comfort and strengthen each person, and let your justice and love bring hope and renewal to all communities who experience poverty in Guatemala.
Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
who stooped to raise fallen humanity
through the child–bearing of blessed Mary:
grant that we, who have seen your glory
revealed in our human nature
and your love made perfect in our weakness,
may daily be renewed in your image
and conformed to the pattern of your Son
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion:
God most high,
whose handmaid bore the Word made flesh:
we thank you that in this sacrament of our redemption
you visit us with your Holy Spirit
and overshadow us by your power;
strengthen us to walk with Mary the joyful path of obedience
and so to bring forth the fruits.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
The magnolia tree in a courtyard in the hospital in Milton Keynes was a sign of hope throughout my stay after a stroke in 2022 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Scripture quotations are from the
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
http://nrsvbibles.org
