Gospel
A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him,
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.
Then he said to him, “See that you tell no one anything,
but go, show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them.”
The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.
The man with leprosy approaches Jesus as we should all approach him. Knowing he is the only one to turn to. All things and people can fail us for they are like us, sinners susceptible to sin and weakness. But not Jesus. He is always true. He is always there. Waiting for us to finally turn to him in our hour of need. To say, If you wish, you can make me clean.
For we all need to be cleansed from our failings and from all that attacks us physically and spiritually. We all need to be caught in the hands of Jesus as we find ourselves falling in life.
Most people do not face Jesus until they have exhausted all avenues around them. They have tried money, other people maybe, and things to heal the yearning inside. To heal the wounds we bear. It’s only when we sit alone in our grief like the leper. Isolated in our sorrow and with the fruit of our choices made, displayed for all to see…only then do we try our last hope. Only then do we cry at night and ask the impossible. And he comes and says you are clean. Your sins are forgiven. Come to me and take my yoke for it is easier than the yoke the world has put on you. The yoke of greed and selfishness and pain.
And we do for awhile. But then we can fall back into our old life after the immediate crisis is past. Not understanding that the crisis in our life. The wounds in all mankind is ever present until we surrender each day our life and hearts.
Today let us strive to go to Jesus now, and not wait until we are in dire straits. Bring Jesus into our hearts and with prayer and the sacraments of confessions and the Eucharist let us keep him in our hearts always.
Let us start our day in prayer and end with prayer. Give each moment to him. No longer worry about yesterday or tomorrow but stay in the moment. Jesus is present in the now and we should always seek to have Jesus beside us now, this minute and keep him with us all day.
Deacon Tony Pynes 
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