By virtue of the faith testified to by the bystanders, Jesus heals not only the limbs of a sick person but, more radically, frees one from sins; a fact that scandalised the scribes with an evil eye.
In Francis, perfectly conformed to Christ, this prerogative was repeated thanks to God's plan for him, open to divine Love.
The Franciscan Sources constitute "the vocabulary" of the life of the Poverello and the beginnings of his fraternity, with multiple episodes that reveal Francis' introspection and his holy operation through the Holy Spirit in him.
The Sources attribute to Francis 10 prodigies relating to healed paralysis. They are extensively mentioned in the Major Legend.
We quote some of them to testify how the Lord worked greatly through his servant:
"There was near the town of Orte, a child all shrunken up, who had his head joined to his feet and several bones broken.
Moved by the tears and prayers of his parents, the saint blessed him with the sign of the cross, and he stood up with his limbs well stretched out, instantly healed" (FF 1216).
Again: “In the diocese of Rieti, a weeping mother presented her child to him, who had been so swollen for four years that he could not even see his own legs: the Saint barely touched him with his sacred hands and made him perfectly healthy” (FF 1215).
Where eminent Faith is alive, God works wonders with His instruments; indeed, He endows them with His own powers and enables them to work greater things with Him.
«And seeing Jesus their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Take courage, son, your sins are forgiven'» (Mt 9:2)
Thursday of the 13th wk. in O.T. (Mt 9,1-8)
