Theophilos by Michael O'Brien

Author:Michael O'Brien [O'Brien, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781586173685
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2010-03-30T06:00:00+00:00

Capernaum

The paralytic

Aharon takes me to a building about five streets inland from the shore, more like a hut than a proper home.

“This is one of the places where we meet for prayer”, he says. “We call it the House of Yeshua. During the time when he lived in Capernaum, he slept and ate here.”

We poke our heads inside the door. No one is at home. It is a single-room dwelling with a thatched roof; hanging lamps dangle from the rafters. The place is without furniture save for a wooden table at one end of the room. No one now lives here, Aharon explains, since the house is considered an especially sacred place.

“No beds”, I comment.

“He slept on the floor.”

The floor, I note, is bare dirt.

“You told me that you met him once.”

“Yes, I did. But in those days I was more interested in playing pranks than in miracles.”

“Did you see any?”

“I remember one that I saw with my own eyes, though I know of several others that took place here. We lived in this very street when I was young. My mother was upset that thousands of people from the surrounding region were swarming into the town to see Yeshua, choking every street and making it difficult to live a normal life. She was not then a believer in him, though later she was very much so. She died three years ago, in holiness and peace. But that day, being a responsible and practical person, she was greatly irritated by the constant disruptions. She had found me gawking at the edge of the crowd and grabbed me by the hand as she stormed toward this house, intending to tell Yeshua to take his preaching to the outskirts of town. But she ran into a solid wall of people, many hundreds filling every space in these small alleys and lanes. She could not get through to speak to him. I saw that she was furious and might take out her frustration on me, for I was no stranger to swats. I was, I think, about six or seven years old at the time, and too full of life for my own good, as she used to say of me. I shook off her hand, dropped to my hands and knees, and crawled between a forest of legs, closer and closer to the little house in which we now stand. Everyone in the crowd paid me no notice, or if they did they did not care. And that is how I came to see my first miracle.

“A man who had been paralyzed most of his life was being carried on a litter toward the house, but his friends could not get him through. Many were pressing forward, hoping for healings, but Yeshua was inside, talking with people—in fact, some local scribes from the synagogue, whose closed minds he was trying to open. Seeing that it was impossible to get through by the regular route, the friends of the paralytic made their way out of the crowd, still carrying him on the litter.

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