Let Nothing Stand In Your Way !

Mark 2: 1-12 
When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days,
it became known that he was at home.
Many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them,    
not even around the door,
and he preached the word to them.
They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.
Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd,
they opened up the roof above him.
After they had broken through,
they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to him,
"Child, your sins are forgiven."
Now some of the scribes were sitting there asking themselves,
"Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming.
Who but God alone can forgive sins?"
Jesus immediately knew in his mind what 
they were thinking to themselves, 
so he said, "Why are you thinking such things in your hearts?
Which is easier, to say to the paralytic,
'Your sins are forgiven,'
or to say, 'Rise, pick up your mat and walk'?
But that you may know
that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth"
–he said to the paralytic,
"I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home."
He rose, picked up his mat at once, 
and went away in the sight of everyone.
They were all astounded
and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this."

One of the concepts in twelve-step programs is that you have to be willing to go to great lengths to achieve your goal.  The men in our story today demonstrated that they understood this concept centuries before the twelve-step programs came into being. They had someone that needed the personal attention of Jesus and there was no way that they could get their paralyzed brother close, at least using conventual means.  So, they came up with a solution that the owner of the house must not have thought too highly of and the tore apart the roof and lowered the paralyzed man through the hole thus created.  Jesus saw their faith and He ended up helping the paralyzed man, first by curing his spiritual ills and then by curing his paralysis.  

The people in our story today had one goal in mind and that was to get their case before Jesus.  They did not let anything stand in their way.  What is keeping us from turning our lives over to Jesus today?  Are we afraid He will ask too much of us?  Are we afraid that our personality, our psyche will be submerged completely and we will lose a sense of who we are? Perhaps we are afraid that becoming a follower will cut us off from the things that we love the most.  We have to be as brave and bold as the people in our story and we cannot let anything separate us from Jesus.  The men who tore up the roof did not really know if Jesus would be able to help.  They had faith that He would be able to and they stopped at nothing.  What is getting in our way from a total commitment to Jesus?  Is that thing worth more than eternal happiness in heaven? 

Please take a moment to consider your final ending.  If you were to die at this very moment would you go to heaven, hell, or purgatory?  If you said heaven, then I congratulate you because you are a holy person, without sin or attachment to sin. You've confessed all of your sins, including those venial sins and have spent exorbitant periods of time in penance to make up for them. If this is you then Heaven is waiting for you.  On the other hand, if sin has a hold on any facet of your life, if there are little things that have not come out in confession because your pride will not allow them to be spoken of aloud, then your arrival in heaven will be delayed while you take care of these little things that stain your soul and you will want to choose Purgatory.  Our brother and sisters that are already in Purgatory need you to help them get out of this place of temporary suffering.  They will be the first to tell you that although their pains and sufferings are great, so is their joy because they know that they will someday attain heaven and they would reject a return to their earthly home. They can do nothing except wait and pray. They yearn for the prayers of the faithful on earth to help them, but many thousands have no one to pray for them, for example, Protestant souls who end up there whose family rejects the concept of Purgatory and therefore there will be no prayers forthcoming for the poor soul.  Please, pray for the poor souls in Purgatory. They suffer so much and need your prayers to help them attain heaven.  Just a moment of your time will help and they will remember those that help them.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.