MARY, OUR MOTHER

SCRIPTURE COMMENTARY #230

After these things was a festival day of the Jews: and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is at Jerusalem a pond, called Probatica, which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered: waiting for the moving of the water. And an angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he lay under. And there was a certain man there that had been eight and thirty years under his infirmity. Him when Jesus had seen lying, and knew that he had been now a long time, He saith to him: "Wilt thou be made whole?" The infirm man answered him: "Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pond. For whilst I am coming, another goeth down before me." Jesus saith to him: "Arise, take up thy bed and walk." And immediately the man was made whole: and he took up his bed and walked. And it was the sabbath that day. The Jews therefore said to him that was healed: "It is the sabbath. It is not lawful for thee to take up thy bed." (John 5:1-10)

OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH: "The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath" (Luke 6:5). He permitted the man to prove the completeness of his cure by taking up his bed and carrying it home--therefore it was lawful for the man to do it.

[From 'A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture' by Bishop Knecht, D.D.]
(1899 Douay-Rheims Bible)