6th Sunday of Matthew/ Message of Archbishop Joan: Healing Spiritual Paralysis

2026-07-12 14:14:00, Aktualitet CNA

This Sunday coincides with the 6th Sunday of Matthew. During his sermon, the Archbishop of Tirana, Durrës and all Albania, Joan, emphasized that the liturgical journey of the church and deepening in the word of the Gospel are the only path to knowing God.

Archbishop Joan emphasized that true love and empathy are shown through actions towards those in need.

He invited believers to renounce pride and selfishness, seeking God's presence through humility, as only drawing close to Christ can give man true peace and purity of heart.

Sermon by His Beatitude, John, Archbishop of Tirana, Durrës and All Albania

6th Sunday of Matthew (Healing of the Paralytic)

The Church's Liturgical Year is a journey with God. If we take this journey seriously, we will begin to know God. And when we know something of God, then we begin to love Him very much, because there is no happier life and greater joy than man's encounter with God.

Where do we meet God? We meet in the reading of the Gospel, we meet in our prayers, we meet in the Mysteries of the Church, if we truly participate in them. The saints called Christ 'the sweet Christ', because he who tastes God understands how sweet He is. Taste the Lord - says the Psalmist - and you will see that He is good and sweet. Therefore, the journey with the Gospel is very important and we must meditate so that we can begin to understand the words that the Lord says in the Gospel.

Today's Gospel tells of a healing. The ninth and previous chapters of Matthew are filled with the healings that God performs. The emphasis is not so much on the healings, because we know that God always performs healings, but on the dynamics of the event: the way God touches man and how man manages to touch God and be healed. God's touch always brings healing. The closer God is to our soul, the more we are healed. We all need healing. We all need healing of soul and body. Today's story tells of the healing of a paralyzed man, whom his four friends take on a stretcher, bring him to the house where the Lord was staying. But because there were so many people, they could not enter, so they went up on the roof, broke the roof and lowered the stretcher down. And the Lord, seeing their faith, says to the paralyzed man: "Take courage, son, your sins are forgiven." The scribes and Pharisees who were there were thinking in their minds that He was blaspheming and that who can forgive sins except God? The Lord who reads all people's hearts and minds turned to them and said: Why do you think evil thoughts in your minds? Which is easier, to say, Your sins are forgiven you, or to get up and walk? And at the same time the paralyzed man was healed. This Gospel shows us the healing power of God and that human illness belongs to the entire human body. Man is a single psychosomatic entity. The spirit affects the body and the body affects the spirit. They cannot be separated from each other. In the service of Ephesia, when we anoint people with the blessed oil we say: For the healing of body and soul. So, for the complete healing of man, body and soul, because man cannot be just one of them. I have mentioned to you several times the classic saying in Orthodoxy that a body without a soul is a corpse, a soul without a body is a ghost. In this way, man is not complete. That is why God wants to heal people spiritually once and for all, and by reading his heart, God understood that the paralyzed man had repented. Something had happened within his soul, so God told him that your sins are forgiven and then healed him physically. Each of us needs healing. We may not be physically paralyzed, but spiritually we are often paralyzed.

What is spiritual paralysis? Here is a very short experiment that anyone can do: When you read the Gospel and feel nothing; when you see a person suffering, you are not touched by his pain; when you see his family members in trouble, you still feel nothing. This means that his soul is paralyzed. There is no disease more difficult to cure than spiritual paralysis. It is even more harmful to us than physical paralysis. Because when we are spiritually paralyzed, we have lost. Whereas when we are paralyzed only physically, and our spirit is good, we are still won.

Today's Gospel is a call for each of us to remove the paralysis of our soul, to start and feel something for all other people. Many people can often feel something, but that alone is not enough. True love is not just a feeling, it is also an action. If you see a person who has no bread, you must give him something. If you see a person who is very sad, you must comfort him. It is not enough to just feel sorry for him. God not only feels sorry, but He intervenes and acts. This is exactly what He asks of each of us.

Another important point of this Gospel is that God reads hearts, He sees everything. We can often do things and it seems to us that people do not see us. People cannot see us, but God sees us. A story is told by the desert monks where once a great ascetic went to the city of Alexandria and a sinful woman tried to tempt him. He pretended to agree and suggested that we go to the center of the city at noon and sin there. She says to him that how can we go there, will all the people see us?! Then the ascetic says to her: Woman, even if we go to the darkest and deepest cave, if people do not see us, God will see us. And the story shows that that woman repented and began the path of salvation. Whatever we do secretly, even if people do not see us, God will see us. If we are ashamed of people, how much more should we be ashamed of God. That is why today's Gospel also shows us that God is careful in everything and sees everything that is in us. And in the prayer that the priest or bishop often reads in some parts of the Liturgy, he says: God gives knowledge and wisdom to those who ask for it, but he does not take his eyes off the sinner. Therefore, He has also established repentance. We can commit many sins, but God, by repenting for us, has given us a path of salvation and healing. We do not repent, because we have great spiritual and psychological obstacles within us. The obstacle is precisely the pseudo-self. When a person is seized by pride, greed, envy, selfishness, he sees repentance as a humiliation, he does not see it as a cure. He does not even obey, because he sees obedience as a humiliation. While the Fathers of the Church and all the holy monks saw obedience as the only path to salvation. So, through obedience to the teachings of God and through humility. If we will be humble and draw close to God, He will save us.

God, in this part of the Gospel, is the only one who speaks. Neither the paralyzed man speaks, nor those who brought him. They do not speak, and the scribes who began to think badly of him. God reads all thoughts. He sees not only our evil deeds, but also our evil thoughts. Whenever we have evil thoughts against others, they cannot be hidden from God. Therefore, the saints repented not only of their actions, but also of their evil thoughts that they might have had in mind against a person or against something else. God discerns all of these.

And one last very important point is that we must seek the Lord. That, by seeking the Lord, He will give us wisdom and understanding. If we do not seek the Lord, we will not find Him. By seeking the Lord, He will reveal Himself to us, and by revealing Himself to us, He will completely change our lives. The more we try to live according to the teachings of the Lord, the more we will know Him. And the more we know Him, the more we will love Him. Thus, by loving Him, we will feel the sweet taste of God's presence in our soul. Only that can give man peace, depth, and purity of heart.

Therefore, let us pray to Christ and fall at his feet, as we sing in the Little Entrance. And the Lord will undoubtedly have mercy and say to each of us: "Take heart, son/daughter, for your sins are forgiven." If sins are forgiven, this is the greatest gift that God can give us. Let us always pray to Christ, because He is a loving God who always has his mind on all people and watches over all our souls. Whoever approaches Him, as in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, He will come first to embrace us, to heal us, and to enlighten us. Amen./ CNA