Some years ago I met a man who had been seriously injured in a car crash. On the morning of his eleventh day in Intensive Care he was having his breakfast. He noticed that his nurse was standing at the foot of the bed smiling. He asked her why she was smiling. She answered, "do you realise what you are doing? You are stirring your tea by yourself for the first time. You are on the mend." I thought of that man when I read today's Gospel. Jesus told the sick man to get up, pick up the stretcher he was lying on and go home. That he did so was a living, active symbol or illustration of what it is like to have our sins forgiven.

True contrition, true sorrow on our part expressed to God leads to a change of life, even a change of person brought about by God's enlivening grace. We are reinvigorated. We are new people.

In the first reading the blooming of the desert shows what God's friendship can bring about. As desert people, separated in varying degrees from God by sin, we are barren. Contrite, forgiven we can bloom again and produce fruit for eternal life. In Romans 6, St. Paul tells us "But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life."