Some of us get too scrupulous with our sins. We try to dig deeply into our soul and find what else we did that offended our God. I forgot and ate meat on Friday during Lent, I missed Mass on Sunday, I didn’t say my prayers, I watched something inappropriate on TV, I had bad thoughts, and so on. Don’t get me wrong. It is important to do a good examination of conscience. However, instead of thinking about all those sinful things we have done, we need to stop for a moment and think about how much good we did to other people. Did I help when she was in need? did I say something nice? did I pray for another? did I visit, did I feed, smile at my neighbor? Or would I rather seek excuses for doing any of these because he wasn’t nice to me, because when I needed help, she didn’t help. In the gospel reading today, Jesus healed a man who was ill for thirty-eight years. Can you imagine being ill for 38 years, and then one day Jesus was passing by, but ‘unfortunately’ it was a Sabbath day. Jesus teaches us that if someone needs our help, we can’t look for excuses. But if we can and however we can, the wellbeing of another person should always be a Christian’s priority.
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