Today’s Reading has “Hidden Prophecies” that tell us why He Who told us to “Love God and love your neighbors as yourselves.” was hated by some who felt threatened by Him and His Teaching.
In John 5: 1-16, Jesus had gone to the pool in Jerusalem called “Bethesda“. He saw a man who had been ill for 38 years. “When Jesus saw Him lying there, and knew he had been ill for a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be well?’ The sick man answered Him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets there before me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Rise, take up your mat, and walk.’ Immediately, the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.” He was obedient.
The “Hidden Prophecy”? Those most obedient to Jesus follow The Church-Creating Word He Spoke to His First Catholic Pope: “And I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock, I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven”. Catholics are blessed to obey His command to “rise, take up your mat, and walk.” We spend our lives “walking” to God’s Judgment while holding “the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven”. We see that they include the Seven Catholic Sacraments!
While the “healed man” was walking, “he was asked “Who is the man who told you, ‘Take up your mat and walk?’, and he did not know. Then, Jesus “found him in the Temple area and said to him: ‘Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.'”
What did the “healed man” do? He showed us another “Hidden Prophecy” describing him to be one of the dumbest men in The Bible! Like a living Prophecy of Judas, this traitorous tattle-tale, “The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was The One Who made him well.” That showed he loved worldly approval more than He Who cured him. That may be the worst “paralysis” on earth because he kept his soul from moving closer to God! Did that betrayal predict that something “worse” would happen to Him and keep him as eternally paralyzed in the fires of hell as he had been before Jesus let him “pick up his mat and walk”?
The last “Hidden Prophecy” predicts what many in other religions would do when realizing Jesus has the Power to Heal what they cannot. This passage predicts every anti-Catholic religion whose leaders feel compelled to deprive their donors of The Seven Catholic Sacraments: “Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because He did this on a Sabbath.”
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Today’s Simple Rhyme: “First, love God. Then, our neighbor. / That is our holy, Catholic labor.”
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