Posted by The WORD in other words (2006) by Fr Rudy Horst SVD – Christ the King Seminary, Quezon City
Thursday 1st Week in Ordinary Time
During my first visit to the Philippines, I was invited to join a group who wanted to see the Leprosarium at Tala. It was my first encounter with this illness. I was more than shocked when I saw the worst cases, people without fingers and toes, without lips and eyes. At least, they were taken care of, while lepers in the time of Jesus were outcasts, shunned and cursed by everybody. We understand so well the cry of the leper who approached Jesus, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” The leper’s prayer showed a profound faith. For him, a medically hopeless case, there was no question that Jesus was able to heal him.
In touching the leper, Jesus was touching someone who was humanly and religiously untouchable. According to the Jewish law, Jesus became with this touch ritually unclean. But the faith of the leper made him respond in the most loving way. Jesus could not have reached out any further to show for what purpose he had come into the world.
In the Bible leprosy stands often for sin. For sin, if not checked early enough, eats up our spiritual substance as unchecked leprosy destroys bit by bit the body of the patient. There is a danger that we don’t take sin seriously. We easily develop bad habits until we become addicted to them.
I feel always sad when I encounter people who have lost the courage to begin all over again. “It’s too late,” some say, “it’s useless.” Others ask, “Will the Lord still forgive me?” Or even worse, “No, God cannot forgive me anymore.”
The “Phantom of the Opera” sings about a “point of no return.” But in our relationship with God there is no point of no return. Even when we may have become spiritually rotten and evil, there is always a point of return. The leper shows us the way: Turn to the Lord with the strong faith that he can and will heal us. And the miracle of cleansing and healing happens in our lives as it happened in the life of the leper.
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