Do you remember the story of that paralyzed man who, with great difficulty, was carried on a stretcher by some people across the roof of the house where Jesus was, and they lowered him right in the middle in front of Him? (Luke 5:17-26) Do you remember what the paralyzed man said to the people so that they would bring him before Jesus? Let’s take a moment to remember this story. 

Did he ask them to bring him to Jesus to hear him or be healed by him? Or did he cry out, “Have mercy on me, Son of David”? He said nothing. He did not ask for anything. In any case, the account says nothing. However, the Gospels do not tell us that he was mute, but “paralyzed”. He could not move.

The Gospel of Luke tells us: “Some men came and carried a paralyzed man on a stretcher”, and the evangelist Mark specifies: “a paralytic carried by four men”. Who are they? Are they his friends, his acquaintances? We do not know. But probably these people make the effort to carry him on the stretcher before Jesus, in spite of the crowd and the difficulties, uncovering the roof and lowering him, because they thought or believed that Jesus could do something for him, perhaps even heal him.

Why do I remind you of this story? Because it is our story. That is what we do every day in the World Wide Prayer Network. Because we know Jesus, because we have experienced His love, His forgiveness, we have been freed, healed and even saved by Him, because we have found that encountering Jesus transforms lives, our lives. We also desire that others may encounter Him, especially all those who suffer, who are in darkness and desolation, those who are in loneliness and thirst for tenderness and love. 

Therefore, every day we pray, we pray for people like this paralytic, for people who do not ask us for anything, who perhaps do not even know Jesus, but we pray for them, because the Church, through the intentions of the Pope, entrusts them to our prayer. We pray with perseverance, making ourselves available through the prayer of offering, and like those people who carry the stretcher, we carry in our prayer so many men, women, children, challenges of humanity. Through our prayer, we carry them “in the midst, before Jesus”, to the Heart of Jesus, so that He may approach their sufferings, embrace them with His tenderness, heal them and save them! This is the mission of compassion that we live every day and that has its source in the Heart of Jesus. Through our prayer, we bring the challenges of the world to Jesus, to his compassionate heart.

Frédéric Fornos SJ