Good morning. At the start of Jesus’ public ministry, he “came to Nazareth. . . into the synagogue on the sabbath day. . . He unrolled the scroll [of the prophet Isaiah] and found the passage where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.’ Rolling up the scroll he handed it back to the attendant and sat down and. . . said to them, ‘Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing’” (Luke 4:16-21).
This brings us to today’s Gospel and Jesus’ healing of the woman who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. Jesus keeps his promises. He “proclaimed liberty to captives” and “let the oppressed go free” when he said to her: “Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.” You see, she was so burdened by a spirit speaking lies to her for eighteen years that she “was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect.” How many times in our lives have we been burdened by the lies of the Evil One, the Prince of Lies and Deception, that we are not able to see ourselves with the dignity of being a beloved sons and daughters of our Father in heaven, of God who created us in his loving image and after his likeness?
This is not God’s loving plan for us as Saint Paul tells us in today’s first reading: “. . .you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’” For God so loved us that He sent his only Begotten Son (John 3:16) to “proclaim liberty” to us who are held captive by temptations and oppressed by sin and let us go free. Jesus comes to us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in his Presence in the Eucharist, and sends his Spirit to us to bear witness to us that “we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ.”
That is our dignity as a Christian, as a follower of Christ, as beloved sons and daughters of our Father in heaven. This dignity gives our suffering meaning because if “we suffer with [Christ]. . . we may also be glorified with him,” and be able to “at once [stand] up straight and [glorify] God” by our lives, just like the woman did after Jesus freed her. As so, my sisters and brothers in Christ, when we receive our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, in a few moments from now, let us ask our Lord and our God to set us free of our “infirmity” so that we no longer bent over but “stand up straight,” glorying the Lord by our lives.
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