On this, the fourth Sunday of Pascha, in the Holy Orthodox Church, we make commemoration of the Paralytic and, as is meet, we celebrate the miracle wrought for him.

Jesus healed the Paralytic at the Sheep’s Pool, located near the Sheep’s Gate of Jerusalem, where people sacrificed their beasts and washed their insides. The pool had five sides, with a porch and arch on each. A number of people, afflicted with various diseases, passed through them, waiting at the water for an angel to come down and stir it. Once it moved, whoever stepped into the water first was instantly healed. One poor man, whose story is recounted in today’s Gospel lection in the Divine Liturgy, waited 38 years for someone to lower him into the water, because he was unable to move into the water himself. However, the Savior merely commanded the man to get up and walk, and he was healed.

By Thy boundless mercy, O Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.