Our Gospel takes up where the Old Testament law ends. In his actions of touching a leper Jesus puts aside law, traditions, societal norms and expectations, even how he might be seen by others in order to reach out to the leper. Who he saw as as man needing his compassion and healing.
This is who our God is. This is what our God is. A God whose love for us is so strong, that no matter how sick we are, whether it be physical or spiritual, he comes, to reach out to touch us, bring his divinity to this suffering humanity, so that we can be cleansed once again and hope to obtain the promises of salvation and reunite with our Father in heaven.
The leper was the perfect person to demonstrate this. For his disease not only attacked him physically but as we know, required him to stay away from people, from towns, from religious practices…he was seen as dead and lost. And his affliction was assumed as a condemnation of his own sin. So when the leper approached Jesus he did it by breaking the law of the people, he was disfigured, probably foul smelling with pustules and oozing sores. Many people with leprosy were misshapen and looked nothing like their former self. It would have been a natural response to draw away for health reasons or sheer repulsion.
This was the initial reaction in the early 4th century when a young soldier named Martin served in the Roman army. One version of Martin’s story says that as the elegantly dressed, and mounted soldier rode on his horse one day he was accosted by a leper begging for alms. The sight and the stench of rotting flesh was so repulsive to the sensitivities of young Martin that his first instincts were to ride off on his horse. But something inside him made him approach the beggar. It was a very cold winter day. Since all he had was his military coat, he drew his sword and cut it in two and gave half to the leper while he wrapped himself with the other half.
That night in his dream he saw Christ clothed in a half coat saying to the angels around his throne, “Martin has clothed me with his garment.” This event was the turning point in the life of him who was to become St Martin of Tours.
The natural revulsion of Martin before leprosy is nothing compared with the ancient Hebrew attitude to leprosy in our Gospel today. To the Hebrews, leprosy was not only a most dreaded natural disease, it was also seen as divine chastisement. The story of Miriam, sister of Moses, who was struck with leprosy as a result of her misconduct (Numbers 12) as well as that of Job who was afflicted with a leprosy-like skin disease reinforced their view of leprosy as divine punishment for sin. In the first reading (Leviticus 13) the dreadful practice of ostracizing lepers is reported as God’s will: “The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying ….”
But the Gospel paints a different picture. Was leprosy indeed divine chastisement? Was the dehumanizing treatment meted out to lepers as described in Leviticus God’s will? If indeed these things were God’s will, then there is no way Jesus, God’s Anointed, would want to heal a leper. If, on the other hand, leprosy is an unfortunate disease like any other, then there is a possibility that Jesus who had earlier healed many sick people would also heal a leper. The leper in the gospel decides to find out the truth once and for all.
Ignoring the law that requires him to keep away from people, he gets close to Jesus and kneels before him. Instead of shouting “Unclean! Unclean!”he says to him, “If it is your will you can make me clean” (Mark 1:40). Jesus’ reply, “It is my will. Be made clean!”(verse 41) did two things. First, it restored the leprosy patient to health. Secondly it proved to him and to all that leprosy was not a divine chastisement after all but a disease like any other disease that prevents people from being fully alive as God wants all people to be.
According to ancient Hebrew belief, physical contact with lepers rendered a person unclean. Holy people in particular were expected to keep a safe distance from lepers. Against this background, the gesture of Jesus who stretches out his hand and physically touches the leper becomes unthinkable. Has he no fear of being defiled? What is going on here? Jesus is challenging and redefining the traditional views of holiness and unholiness.
Jesus is challenging traditional superstitions and prejudices that certain people are impure by the conditions of their health, social status or birth. In many countries today, people of a higher caste would not sit together in church with those of a lower caste, the so-called untouchables. I have been on construction sites around the world where those in management would not even look in the direction of those of lower caste. Or even recognize their presence at all.
By reaching out and touching the leper and thereby making him pure again, Jesus is teaching us, his followers, to reach out and embrace the dehumanized and the outcasts among us. A deed of solidarity with the dehumanized does not dehumanize the doer, rather it restores full humanity to the dehumanized.
Pope John Paul II declared February 11, feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, as the World Day of the Sick. Leprosy, thank God, has become a curable disease. Yet the tendency to see some illnesses and diseases as divine punishment and to ostracize those who suffer from them is still with us.
In years past AIDS and HIV were seen as punishment for sin. Even as the world struggled to contain Ebola, many sought to wall off the countries involved, separate them from the world and even help by outlawing travel to and from the infected countries. We saw how it had arrived in our state and many of us wondered if it was going to spread even to our neighborhoods. It is a terrible disease that requires severe precautions but also compassion. It seems human nature left to its own devices quickly responds to illness and those who are outcast as those people….
Those people, you know who they are….. those who get invited to hear lab findings in that special room in hospitals to hear the diagnosis of Cancer – you know the one…it is more like a living room, the lighting is dim, there is usually a sofa and lamps and it is quiet. The doctor comes in and downshifts her demeanor and voice, the nurse accompanying the doctor has a bag with brochures, books and everything you never wanted to know about your special cancer…..except you no longer feel special at all, or loved for that matter. You feel like you had just been dropped from life and well, it is easy for despair to overcome you. Your life changes as you are now one of those people…the ones who are no longer Tony or Frank or Mary but the one with Cancer or whatever your disease is.
We also have those people who we see on the street…..those who find one day they have no home to go back too. Loss of jobs, mistakes in life with no safety net. Alan Graham who runs the Mobile Loaves and Fishes programs says there is a common theme in most people who live on the street….those people have no family and no friends to help. It isn’t drug abuse or alcoholism or even mental illness that causes most people to end up homeless and outcast…those things are out there and can be part of the problem.
But Alan says the real common theme is they have no one who is family or friend to love them and catch them and help them.
Think about that.
Jesus reached out to the leper today in our Gospel much like a brother would, much like a close friend who was truly a friend. He did not let laws, societal pressure or his own defilement get in the way. In his day, Holy people just did not go near lepers.
Perhaps the take away is that Holy people actually do go near lepers, and folks with cancer and sick, and people who are homeless….holy people do reach out to touch the diseased and outcast.
—-Pause—
I recently had to explain to my grandson what being holy meant. I have been helping prepare him for his first communion. I told him that being holy meant you are always trying to do what Jesus teaches us, you are always trying to be a good follower of Christ by loving him and others. I am not sure that is the best answer. My spiritual director sees holiness as being who God meant you to be….I like that one too.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, states that holiness, is a lifelong process of seeking God himself, through the person of Jesus Christ.
Pope Francis in his Wednesday General Audience, urged thousands of pilgrims to recognize that although everyone is a sinner, it is possible to be holy because of God’s grace.
He goes on to say…
“Do not be afraid of holiness, do not be afraid to aim high, to be loved and purified by God, do not be afraid to let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit,” —I think this is key…we must allow the Holy Spirit to work within us to reach out to others in need.
Pope Francis concluded his reflections by encouraging the pilgrims not to be afraid to be holy or to have high aspirations when they feel weak, frail and sinful.
“Holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things,” he said, but in leaving it to God, stressing that “the meeting of our weakness with the strength of his grace, is to have confidence in his active service to others.”
He said, “Do not lose hope in holiness. We travel all this way; Do we want to be holy? The Lord awaits us all with open arms to join in this path of holiness.”
How are we to be holy today? How are we to demonstrate the love Jesus called us to even as we know we are sinners?…maybe weak, and maybe hesitant to reach out to others who are outcast?
I believe we all desperately need to serve others, even those people who are outcast in our world in order for us to find holiness within us.
—pause—
Holiness is seeing the those people, the panhandlers on 2222 and Mopac and stopping a minute to say hi.
Holiness is our ministers who visit those people in nursing homes to bring the Eucharist. I see the ministers before mass every Sunday and they are indeed holy people.
Holiness is sharing what we have been given with those who do not have, however we can, whenever we find the need.
We all have opportunities to touch others lives. God is always sending someone into our life who we can help. Do we fear we are too weak to help, too afraid, too poor to give? If so, we need to remember two things. God’s grace is strength enough for us and most people need a brother or friend as much as they need anything else. Jesus reached out to the outcast. To those people. –-slowly—
We need to do the same….not for their sake, but for ours. The fact of the matter is, we are all those people, we are the leper Jesus made clean.
When we find ourselves with the opportunity to serve Christ by serving others like St Martin of Tours, we too must listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit inside urging us to help. That is part of being holy. And like St Martin, it just might be our turning point in our life and journey toward holiness.
Deacon Tony Pynes 
You must be logged in to post a comment.