Gospel (Jn 5,1-3.5-16) - There was a Jewish feast and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, there is a pool, called Bethzatha in Hebrew, with five porches, under which lay a large number of sick, blind, lame and paralytic people. There was a man there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. Jesus, seeing him lying and knowing that he had been like this for a long time, said to him: "Do you want to get well?". The sick man replied: «Sir, I have no one to immerse me in the pool when the water is agitated. In fact, while I am about to go there, another comes down before me." Jesus said to him, "Get up, take your stretcher and walk." And instantly that man was healed: he took his stretcher and began to walk. That day, however, was a Saturday. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed: "It is Saturday and it is not lawful for you to carry your stretcher." But he answered them: «He who healed me said to me: “Take your stretcher and walk”. They then asked him: "Who is the man who said to you: 'Take up and walk'?". But he who was healed did not know who he was; In fact, Jesus had gone away because there was a crowd in that place. Shortly afterwards Jesus found him in the temple and said to him: «Behold: you are healed! Don't sin anymore, so that something worse doesn't happen to you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. This is why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did such things on the Sabbath.

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

The evangelist John leads us to Jerusalem next to a pool, called Bethesda (“House of Mercy”). It was a place considered sacred and miraculous. For this reason, "a large number of the sick, blind, lame and paralytics" gathered at its edges, notes the evangelist. They gathered near the pool following a popular tradition, probably linked to the cult of a pagan healing divinity, waiting for an angel to stir the water, certain that the first person to enter would be healed. We can compare that pool to the Church, the true "house of mercy". The Christian tradition has imagined the Church as a fountain of gushing water, always alive. Those oriental icons that show Mary at the center of a fountain quenching the thirst of the poor, the sick, the blind, the lame and the weak are beautiful. And John XXIII loved to compare the Church to the village fountain to which everyone went to quench their thirst. This swimming pool with five porticoes is an example that Christian communities must take inspiration from. It is not a place of magic or strange esotericisms. Of course, we could say that there is always a need for an angel to intervene. But the angel is Jesus himself as he was for that sick man who had been at the edge of that swimming pool for many years, without anyone helping him. Jesus, passing by him, stops and inquires about his condition. He has been ill for 38 years. Today we would say that he is a "chronic" patient, that is, that he must resign himself to remaining ill, without the possibility of recovery and often not even treatment. When that paralytic sees Jesus stopping and asking him: "Do you want to get well?", his heart lights up. From that encounter, as from every true and free encounter, hope is reborn in that paralytic. Love always opens the heart of those who receive it. When you are alone it is difficult, if not impossible, to heal. And how many are still left alone today at the very moment when their weakness is greatest! With Jesus came the true angel who cured that man of his illness. And he, turning to the paralytic, says to him: «Get up, take your stretcher and walk». And so it happens. Then there is a second meeting. That man needed to be healed even in his heart. Upon meeting him the second time, Jesus tells him: «Behold, you are healed! Don't sin anymore." There is a need to continue to encounter Jesus in order to be healed from the depths of one's heart. Each of us should think of ourselves at the edge of that swimming pool and hear Jesus say those same words to rise from the paralysis of egocentrism and in turn become an "angel" for those who need help and comfort. Also remembering that Jesus must be met again and his words listened to again in order to receive that mercy that keeps us alive and frees us from sins.