Do not settle for defeat. We must humbly ask for God's help, and make a sincere effort to use all the means available.
“Don't be anxious about your past mistakes, or the possibility of future faults. Let's abandon ourselves into God's merciful hands. Let's show him the desires of holiness and apostolate which are alive beneath the ashes of our apparent coldness. He is listening to us. You only have to talk."
Jesus went up to Jerusalem. There was a paralytic by the pool.
The Lord, who is the doctor of souls and of bodies and who has come to heal all those who believed in him, fixed his gaze on one alone among all the sick people there, in order to cure him. It was a sign of special love, like the love Jesus showed us by calling us to Christian life from among so many people.
When Jesus saw the sick man, and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" Likewise, the Lord saw us helpless in our weakness, and reading the desires latent in our heart, he uttered that sweet demands which, with his grace, we accepted.
St John Chrysostom comments: The paralytic man was not annoyed by the question, nor did he say: "Have you come to insult me, asking me if I want to be cured?" On the contrary, he replied meekly: "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going, another steps down before me." He did not know who was questioning him; much less that he would cure him. He may have thought that Christ would help him into the water. Instead, Christ showed that his word alone could do everything. Our Lord is always ready to listen to us, but he wants our personal response, shown in the effort we make to get out of any situation which prevents us from following him closely.
St. Josemaría taught us that in the interior life “there is but one fatal illness, one deadly mistake you can make: to settle for defeat, not to know how to fight with the spirit of a child of God. If this personal effort is lacking, the soul is paralyzed and languishes alone, and is incapable of bearing fruit."
“Such cowardice on man's part puts pressure on our Lord to utter those words addressed to him by the paralytic at the pool of Bethsaida, –I have no man to help me!"
“What a pity if Jesus does not find in you the man or the woman he expects."
Once more, God shows us that his goodness is beyond human calculation. Let us tell him now, simply and plainly: "Yes, Lord, I want to be healed, I want to be freed from this impediment that separates me from you, and prevents me from living to the full the divine life to which you have called me."
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