Friends,
The theme of today’s readings is God’s loving compassion and healing. To us, is a call to be caring, pure, and holy.
Two of the readings speak of leprosy, a disease that can now be cured but, at the time, was seen as a punishment for sin. The belief was that either the leper or one of their family had offended God in some way.
The first reading reveals the requirements imposed on lepers. They were to make themselves physically unattractive so that people would know they were unclean and to live apart outside the city walls. They were sentenced to indefinite exile from their community and excluded from worship. The leper we meet in the Gospel breaks the law because of his faith. He approaches Jesus, pleading to be made clean. We see Jesus’s compassion, mercy, and healing power in curing him. The leper can be readmitted to his community once he has seen the priest, though conversely, Jesus now becomes the outcast.
In the Psalm, we hear the joy of the psalmist, who, in acknowledging and repenting of his sins, is confident of the Lord’s forgiveness. The Second Reading calls us to be witnesses to Christ’s teaching in everything we do and always to be sensitive to others.
This week, let us bring our desires and needs to Jesus and pray to have courage, humility, and faith like the leper in the Gospel.
Joy and peace.
