A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, "If you wish, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, "I do will it. Be made clean." The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean. Then, warning the him sternly, he dismissed him at once. -From the Gospel for today.
Listen to my homily for today:
If you have trouble listening click here.
Jesus touches a leper. According to Mosaic law he becomes "unclean" while the leper becomes clean. He takes our guilt we receive freedom. He takes our sins and gives us life. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta tells us that the greatest poverty of our age, especially in wealthy countries, is that so many are unloved. When we encounter Christ we discover how very loved we are.
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read #517:
Christ's whole life is a mystery of redemption. Redemption comes to us above all through the blood of his cross,179 but this mystery is at work throughout Christ's entire life:
- already in his Incarnation through which by becoming poor he enriches us with his poverty;180- in his hidden life which by his submission atones for our disobedience;181- in his word which purifies its hearers;182- in his healings and exorcisms by which "he took our infirmities and bore our diseases";183- and in his Resurrection by which he justifies us.184
Just as all of Christ's life was a means of redemption, he asks us to be the same, that everything about us would help heal those around us, especially those closest to us, who are easiest for us to wound or to love, and therefore heal. We must become a loving people that we become a healing people.
Every time we receive holy communion, God touches us. When he touches lepers, blind, crippled in the Gospel and in our day, he heals them. Jesus heal us!
May Our Lady and all the saints inspire us and pray for us that this come about.
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