DGeMs- Daily Gospel eMessage
Dear Friend in the Lord,
“Jesus’ Compassion” – Faith: Jesus cured the man who was sick for thirty-eight years; no one showed him any compassion; to let him enter the “Sheep Pool”. Ponder on, “Pray to have the grace of compassion for the suffering of others, and become more like Jesus. Recall our own pains, and know that others are suffering too, and need our empathy.”
Fr Philip Heng, S.J.
John 5:1-3a,5-9,16
There was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem next to the Sheep Pool there is a pool called Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five porticos; and under these were crowds of sick people, blind, lame, paralysed
One man there had an illness which had lasted thirty-eight years, and when Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had been in that condition for a long time, he said, ‘Do you want to be well again?’ ‘Sir,’ replied the sick man, ‘I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed; and while I am still on the way, someone else gets down there before me.’
Jesus said, ‘Get up, pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around.’ The man was cured at once, and he picked up his mat and started to walk around. Now that day happened to be the Sabbath. It was because he did things like this on the Sabbath that the Jews began to harass Jesus.