REFLECT:
The Gospel reading today presents us with the account of the Cure on the Sabbath, when the Lord Jesus healed a long-suffering man at the Pool of Bethesda.  The pool in this scene is known to be a pool where many ill persons congregated, possibly in search of healing or mere refreshment.  The name “Bethesda” is thought to mean “house of mercy” or “house of grace” due to the number people who bathed in the waters of the pool.

In the Gospel scene, the Lord asked the ill man, “Do you want to be well?” On the surface—perhaps because we know the happy conclusion—we relate to the consoling words of the Lord, Who we know did heal the man.  However—applying this scene in the present day—if we were to encounter someone in the waiting room of a hospital emergency room (and we knew them to have suffered with their illness for 38 years), asking “Do you want to be well?” would be almost insulting.

Nevertheless, the man’s response is interesting: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”  Something doesn’t add up here: how can he be cut in line on his way to the pool but also need someone else to put him in the pool?  In any case, Jesus might cut to the chase and ask, “Is that a ‘yes’?” The Lord asked a pointed question to a chronically ill man about his desire to be well, and the man’s response was essentially, “Well, I’m at the hospital, aren’t I?” There’s even a sense of resignation in this exchange on the part of the ill man.

Sometimes—even with regard to our best intentions and most virtuous actions—we obscure the work of God in our lives and our desire for holiness.  We beat around the bush, because we’ve missed both the point and the goal.

“Beating around the bush” is an idiom resulting from the sport of hunting, in which persons were designated to shake a bush in order to rustle the birds out so that the hunters (i.e. someone else) might more easily target them.  The sport, after all, is the hunting of the bird, not the beating around the bush.  In other words, beating around the bush is a confusion about the goal.  When Jesus asks us, “Do you want to be well?” the answer is, “Yes.”  We would beat around the bush to say, “Well, I try to be a good person,” or “Well, I go to Mass on Sundays,” or, “Well, I went to confession this Lent,” or “Well, I work for the Church.”  None of these responses is an appropriate answer to the Lord’s question.  They beat around the bush.

The Lord said elsewhere, “Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one,” (Matthew 5:37).

What happens when we beat around the bush with regard to our spiritual lives? We end up seeing the disciplines and practices as the ends unto themselves.  This was the sin of the Jews in the Gospel who persecuted Jesus for healing anyone on the Sabbath, and it is indicative of a fundamental confusion.  Whenever we confuse the external disciplines and practices as our end goals—rather than relying on them as tools and helps to deepen our friendship with God—they have in fact become obstacles.  In the worst cases, we make excuses of them for our lack of progress: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”

As we head into the final days of Lent, may we cut to the chase, stop beating around the bush, and embrace the Lord’s call to holiness with a sense of urgency.

PRAY:
Heavenly Father, You have told me what my true end is: only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with You.  Help me, by Your grace, to order all of my thoughts, words, and deeds so to grow closer to You each day, together with my brothers and sisters.

ACT:
“Come further up, come further in!” (From C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle); dig more deeply into your spiritual disciplines, to know your purpose.
Speak your mind honestly, always being open to encouragement, accompaniment, and even admonition from others.
Listen to others and be present to them; be prepared to help them know more deeply the presence of God in their lives, and accompany them on the path to holiness.
Pray for an increase in the desire for holiness, and trust that the Lord will complete His good work in you.