For a person who had been ill for thirty-eight years, the question: Do you want to be well, seems an odd, if not cruel question. Nevertheless, it is the same question that is repeatedly addressed to us, not necessarily because we are physically ill, but because of our spiritually-sick state. This repeated question is necessary because whereas the gospel tells us that the sick man immediately became well, our spiritual maladies can take a lifetime to heal. Like the angel measuring out the thousand cubits and the water reaching our ankles, our inner healing proceeds in stages and begins with the upper and shallower levels of spiritual and psychological healing. But, as the water becomes deeper and deeper, we have a natural tendency to become anxious and step back onto the shore of our false securities and the dubious comfort of our self-delusions and incomplete self-knowledge. And so the Spirit has to call out again and again: Do you want to be well? And then, if we are still invested in our ongoing conversion, we step back into the threatening waters even though they are now waist-high, and press forward. However, it is only when the waters can no longer be waded through, and by surrendering control, and surrendering to the healing waters of God’s mercy, that we are finally healed and, begin bearing the fruit that then brings healing to others. May Saint Patrick, healed in just the same way, obtain for us the same grace and mercy.