In the Gospel of today's Mass, St. Mark tells us that Jesus came to Capernaum and immediately it was known that he was in the house, and so many gathered that there was no longer room even at the door.
Four friends also went to the house carrying a paralytic, but they could not reach Jesus because of the crowd. Then, perhaps using a ladder at the back, they went up to the roof with the paralytic; they lifted the roof over the place where the Lord was, and after making a hole, they took down the stretcher on which the paralytic was lying. They left the stretcher in the middle, in front of Jesus.
The apostolate, and in a singular way that of Confession, is something similar: to place people before Jesus; in spite of the difficulties that this can bring with it. They left their friend before Jesus. Then the Lord did the rest; it is He who really does what is important.
The four friends already knew the Master, and their hope was so great that the miracle will take place because of their trust in Jesus. And their faith supplements or completes that of the paralytic. The Gospel tells us that when Jesus saw their faith, their friends' faith, he performed the miracle. The faith of the sick man is not explicitly mentioned, but the faith of the friends is insisted upon. They overcame obstacles that seemed insurmountable: they must have convinced the sick man. Their confidence in Jesus must have been great, for only he who is convinced, convinces. When they arrived at the house, it was so crowded that, it seemed, nothing could be done on that occasion. But they did not give up. They overcame this barrier with their determination, with their ingenuity, with their interest. The important thing was the meeting between Jesus and his friend, and they put all the means at their disposal to make it happen.
What a great lesson for our apostolate as Christians! We too will undoubtedly encounter greater or lesser resistance. Our mission consists fundamentally in bringing our friends face to face with Christ, leaving them with Jesus... and disappearing. Who can transform a person's interiority if not the Lord, and only the Lord? The apostolate is in the order of grace, of the supernatural.
Perhaps at times we are to blame for the fact that others do not approach God, because they find themselves unable to go to the Lord. This paralytic," explains St. Thomas, "symbolizes the sinner who lies in sin; just as the paralytic cannot move, neither can the sinner fend for himself. Those who carry the paralytic represent those who by their counsels lead the sinner to God".
If we have confidence and frequent contact with Christ, we will be able to overcome, with human initiatives, the obstacles that always present themselves, in one way or another, in every apostolic work.
The Lord was pleasantly impressed by the audacity, the fruit of a great apostolic hope, of these four friends who did not back down in the face of the first difficulties, nor did they leave it for another more opportune occasion, for they did not know when Jesus would pass by again, so close by.
We can ask ourselves today in our personal meditation if we do the same with our friends, relatives and acquaintances: have we stopped at the first difficulties, when we had decided to help them to come to Confession? There the Lord was waiting for them.