Sunday of the Paralytic:
Do Not Say You Are Alone
By Metropolitan Chrysostomos III of Mani
"I have no one," said that tortured paralytic, where he sat and waited for the miracle, near the sheep gate in Jerusalem. He said it to himself for thirty-eight years and then his eyes would water. There was no sadness painted on his face but something more - bitterness. The disappointing bitterness of loneliness. No one was there to lift him up and put him in the pool when the angel came from heaven. He was alone in a flood of people. With the cry of the suffering of his physical problem and the pain of abandonment. But he also expressed this complaint of loneliness to Christ. And the Lord healed him. He said to him: “Take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, and he took up his bed and walked (John 5:8-9).
We find ourselves in a society where loneliness, what the paralytic experienced within himself, is a frequent reality. A multitude of people around us in the same apartment building, in the same neighborhood, in the same workplace, yet walls of alienation, isolation, indifference and even rivalry are constantly being built. The lack of communication, the absence of fellow human beings, the closed fortress within oneself prevails. Alone and lonely at home, at big celebrations, on trips, studying abroad, at lunch and dinner, alone in the hospital, in the ICU, in the approaching death. Sometimes it is true: “My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague, and my relatives stand afar off” (Ps. 37:12). Loneliness, like another desert, does not allow the flower of joy to bloom. And consequently, the collapse of the psychosomatic health of man. Alone. You and yourself. Without the presence of the other.
But, the thought arises. Where is Christ? Is He also far away? Exiled? Perhaps forgotten? But, did He not say: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Precisely, His presence is continuous and uninterrupted and His coming is not hindered by time, space, circumstances, persons and events? The Lord is always by our side, no matter how sinful we are and He does not abandon us, no matter how much we abandon Him. The Psalmist will tell us: “Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I descend to hades, you are there” (Ps. 138:7). He is the invisibly present Lord, the most gracious visitor of our soul! We are not alone. There is no loneliness. What of loneliness, when you experience Jesus Christ! He is fullness. No one is disappointed. The problem of loneliness in modern society is not just a sociological or psychological phenomenon. It is deeply spiritual. As long as a person experiences the Christian life, he is never alone.
So don't say, "I am alone." You are not alone. We have God with us. His angels, His saints, the subtle aura of His presence.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.