VI Sunday in OT-[2012]-Levi 13:1-2,45-46;1Cori
10:23-11:1;Mk 1:40-45
Martin was a young
soldier in the Roman army. Elegantly dressed, he was mounted on his horse one
day when 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
his walk up to the beggar. Since all he had was his military coat, he cut it in
two and gave half to the leper while he wrapped himself with the other half. It
was a very cold winter day. 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. To the Hebrews leprosy was not only a most dreaded natural
disease; it was also popularly 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.
Joke1): A young boy was spending a weekend with his
grandmother after a particularly difficult week in kindergarten. On Saturday morning, his grandmother took him
to the park to play in the beautiful, newly fallen snow.
“Doesn’t
it look like an artist painted this scenery?”
Grandma
asked. “Do you think god painted this just for you?”
“Yes,
God did it”, the boy answered, “and He did it left-handed.”
Confused,
Grandma asked, “What makes you think that?”
“Well”,
said the boy, “we learned at Sunday school last week that Jesus sits on God’s
right hand!”
Joke 2): The Bible
tells us that we should love our neighbors and our enemies…. Probably because they are usually the same
people.
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. An Indian friend told me that in his
part of the country people of a higher caste would not sit together in church
with those of a lower caste, the so-called untouchables. 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 has 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 diseases as divine punishment and to ostracize those
who suffer from them is still with us. Is this not how many of us still see people
with HIV-AIDS? Have you not heard tele-evangelists who teach that AIDS is
divine punishment for sin? Jesus challenges us today to abandon such
dehumanizing beliefs and reach out in solidarity with these modern-day lepers
among us, just as he himself did in his own days.
Practical Applications: 1)Trust in the mercy of a forgiving
God who assures us that our sins are forgiven and that we are clean.
We are forgiven and made spiritually clean from the spiritual leprosy of
sins when we repent of our sins, because God is a God of love who waits
patiently for us.
2) We need to
tear down the walls that separate us from others and build bridges of
loving relationship. Jesus calls every one of us to demolish the walls
that separate us from each other and to welcome the outcasts and the
untouchables of society. Let us re-examine the barriers
we have created and approach God with a heart that is ready to
welcome the outcasts in our society.
Introduction : VI Sunday in Ordinary
Time
Today’s Message : Jesus manifests the powerful, healing love of God by
curing the leper who was forced to live under severe restrictions by Jewish
legislation. He turned to Jesus in his
need and was filled with joy. We are
called to imitate the healing and compassionate Jesus.
Saints in this Week: 14th
Tuesday : Saint Cyril, monk, and Methodius bishop
Cyril,
869, and Methodius, 885; brothers known as the “Apostles to the Slaves”;
prepared Slavic liturgical texts; served as the “spiritual bridge between
Eastern and Western traditions”(Pope John Paul II); patrons of the Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia,
Bosnia-Herzogovina, and of all Europe.
17 the Friday : The Seven Holy
Founders of the Servite Order
The
Order of Friar Servants of Mary (Servites), founded by seven Florentine cloth
merchants in 1223, today number about 850 religious; they popularized devotion
to Our Lady of Sorrows.
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