1.Lev
13:1ff
|
2.
1Cor10:31-11:1
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Mk
1:40-45
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THEME OF THE READINGS “
Jesus has come to save even the leper”
As we meditate on the
readings of 6th Sunday of the Year B ordinary time, we are invited
to reflect and think why our mother church has decided to bring the theme leper
in reflections and discussion in two readings out of three readings. In this
regard the church wants to draw our attention from focusing on physical
ailment, that is leprosy to something
deeper than physical disease. This is echoed in the responsorial psalm when the
psalmist says “celebrating the joy of those who confess their sins before God,
and experience his forgiveness.” What can we compare leprosy in our today’s
world with? There are many things more especially vices or sins that can be
compared with leprosy. Sin as one of the human vices can be equated with leprosy
of the soul.
The ancient world
experienced difficulties in combating leprosy as the cure of the disease was
very rare. The only way the ancient world used to combat physical leprosy was
to isolate the lepers, making them to live far from the rest in order to avoid
contamination and defilement as those who suffered from leprosy were conceived
as the ones sinned against God. Those being separated from the community
because of leprosy they were taught to alarm anybody who could approach them
unknowingly by crying aloud “unclean, unclean” as warning to alarm anybody who
could come into contact with them unknowingly. If anyone could come into
contact with the leper he/she had to undergo some Jewish ritual purification
before the high priest in order to be united with the rest members of the
society.
In the Church of Jesus
Christ, leper can be made parallel with any one who commits sin. The person who
commits sin feels being separated from both God and the church. From the leper
we learn a lesson of being humble before God. “ If you want to, You can cure me”(
Mk 1:40). As we see from the reading, the leper’s appeal was met by Jesus’
compassion who according to St.Mark’s gospel was moved with pity. Jesus in
serving those suffering from leprosy seems to risk his life also because by
touching them he makes himself unclean according to the law. Jesus being
compassionate at the expense of those undergoing suffering makes him known
everywhere. In the past after a person had felt being clean was to go and made
it public to be accepted and be united to the rest of the community members
through the rite of confession, in our own time this has become the sacrament
of confession. When the sacrament of confession is administered a person sinned
against God becomes reconciled with Him.
The leper also teaches
each one of us to develop an attitude of thanking God whatever He grants each
one of us according to his/ her needs. As we have seen from the gospel reading
we see that the leper far from thanking Jesus he goes on shouting and inviting
people manifesting his gratitude to all what Jesus did to him, though after
Jesus’ healing he tells the leper not to let anyone know this, yet the leper in
expressing his gratitude is making it to be known to everybody. Jesus’
intention to make his action of healing the leper not to be known was messianic
secret as his hour was not yet, this could bring a confusion among many because
it was the expectation of the majority about the messiah to come. If Jesus
wanted it not to be known because the followers of Jesus who were recording
event’s of Jesus life, would end it by one act of healing the leper and living
out important events in Jesus life like passion, death, resurrection and
ascension, it is under this background Jesus is telling the healed leper not to
tell anybody concerning what had been done to him by Jesus.
Jesus teaches us an
important lesson from the readings about crossing social and religious
boundaries in order to attend and cure the leper. As the man who was suffering
from leprosy break the Old Testament law and approached Jesus, the leper
conceived as an outcast breaks social norms and other prohibitions in order to
approach Jesus. Likewise, in our daily life there a lot of prohibitions,
customs, norms and other taboos that hinders us from following Jesus closely.
In this gospel episode, Jesus shows us God’s attitude to human disability. God
wishes to reach us in whatever predicament we are and restores to fullness of
life.
The leper being healed
reminds us the role Jesus is teaching to us all, we see Jesus’ intervention in
the life of the leper whose health did not allow him to be with the community, Jesus
here brings the communion between the man who had been separated by the
community to be re united with the community. Jesus by example is showing how
to remove the obstacles and barriers that set people apart. In this context,
what barriers do we have in our families, institutions, religious communities? These
are many, we have the barrier of selfishness, tribalism, colour discrimination,
ideological differences etc, all these have to be fought as they are the ones
that separates us. As Christians with the help of prayer and the Holy Spirit we
need to put aside all these barriers in order to be united with Jesus our saviour.
Thus both Jesus and the
leper have got something to say to us about what can be done to bring
restoration to people who have been separated from us. We can be all tempted to
retreat into our past experience with others, more especially those who have
hated us much or those who had some differences with us. Like the leper we can
be sometimes tempted to retreat back by conventions of the society and found
ourselves in wrong directions. Thus today Jesus being an example is extending
his hands to embrace whoever is ready to accept him. There people who seem to
be disturbance and troubles in our life because of their situation we cannot
attend, all because their state of being beggars every moment we get and become
tired of such people, these are lepers of our days, they are the ones Jesus is
speaking through to us, we are invited to pay attention to everybody who asks
for help, our compassionate presence will draw many people to Christ.
Pope John Paul II
declared February 11, feast of our Lady of Lourdes, as the World day of the
sick. Leprosy among them thanks be to God has become a curable disease. We are
all invited to root out this bad mentality of seeing some disease more
especially the incurable diseases as the divine punishment and as the result to
stigmatize those who suffer from such diseases as the ones being punished by
God due to their sins. We have heard many times, from Tele- evangelists who
teach that AIDS is divine punishment for sin. Jesus teaches us today to abandon
completely such teachings and beliefs, instead he teaches us to reach out and
be in solidarity to such stigmatized people by both families and communities.
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