Homily | July 2, 2026 | Heal The Soul First | (Episode 183)

Have you ever noticed that we usually ask God to fix the wrong thing?

When we pray, we ask him to remove the illness, to solve the financial problem, to repair the relationship, to open the right door.

None of those prayers are wrong.

Jesus Himself healed countless people.

But today's gospel teaches us something surprising.

God is always more concerned with the condition of our soul than the condition of our body.

Yes, the body matters.

Our struggles matter.

The cross is real.

Our suffering matters.

But the soul lasts forever.

And that is where Jesus always begins.

The first reading introduces us again to the prophet Amos.

Amos was not a professional prophet.

In fact, he tells us exactly who he was.

He says, I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores.

In other words, I wasn't looking for this job.

He did not graduate from a school of prophets.

He did not seek public recognition.

He did not have political influence.

He was simply living an ordinary life when God interrupted it.

The Lord took me from following the flock, he says.

What a beautiful sentence.

Amos did not choose the mission.

The mission chose him.

That's how God works.

Think about Moses tending sheep, David watching his father's flock, Peter mending fishing nets, Matthew sitting at tax booth.

God delights in calling ordinary people to extraordinary missions.

But notice what happens when Amos obeys.

The priest, Amaziah, tells him, Go home, earn your bread somewhere else.

Do not preach here.

Why?

Well, because the truth Amos was preaching had become inconvenient.

It threatened the powerful, it disturbed people's comfort, it challenged the status quo.

The lesson is timeless.

People usually welcome God's word as long as it confirms what they already believe, what they're comfortable with.

The difficulty begins when God's word asks us to change.

Then we often look for reasons to silence the messenger.

Notice the gospel.

Some friends bring a paralyzed man to Jesus.

Imagine the excitement.

Everyone expects one thing, a miracle, a healing.

Instead, Jesus is something no one anticipated.

Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.

If I had been one of those friends, I might have whispered, Lord, that's wonderful and all, but that's not exactly why we came here, why we carried him all the way.

Yet Jesus knows exactly what he's doing.

He addresses the deeper paralysis first.

The paralysis of sin.

The physical healing can wait.

Why?

Because spiritual healing is infinitely more important.

And this reveals something beautiful about our Catholic faith.

Why did Christ establish the sacrament of reconciliation?

Well, because he knows that every one of us carries burdens no physician can remove.

There are wounds that surgery cannot heal.

There are regrets that no amount of success can erase.

And there's guilt that money cannot buy away.

There's shame that no vacation can make disappear.

Only Christ can say, your sins are forgiven.

And notice something else, the scribes immediately accused Jesus of blasphemy.

Why?

Well, because they understood something many people today have forgotten.

Only God can forgive sins.

Exactly.

That is Jesus' point.

He is revealing his divine identity.

Then to prove that he truly possesses divine authority, he performs the visible miracle.

He tells the paralytic, Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.

The physical miracle confirms the invisible one, the first one.

The healing of the body proves the healing of the soul.

The crowds leave amazed because they have witnessed far more than a miracle.

They have encountered God Himself.

Perhaps today we should ask ourselves a different question.

When I come to Jesus, what am I asking him to fix?

Am I asking only for healthier finances, for a better way of life, a stronger body and easier way?

Or am I truly asking him to heal my heart, to free me from pride, to free me from resentment, from selfishness, from the sins that are quietly paralyzing my soul.

Because the greatest miracle Jesus performs is not making the lame walk, it is making sinners into saints.

And he's still doing that miracle today.

Every time someone kneels in the confessional with a sincere heart, every time Christ speaks through his priest the words of absolution, every time a soul rises from sin to grace and changes his life, that's the miracle Jesus came into the world to accomplish.

So today, let us bring him not only our problems, but our hearts.

Because when Christ heals the soul, everything else begins to find its proper place.

Amen.