Jesus said to the leper, “I want to! Be made clean!” (Sunday, Week 6, Year B)

INTRODUCTION

We may have suffered different degrees of leprosy; but no matter the degree, the good news is that it is only Jesus that can make us clean again. In order to celebrate this mass worthily, let us then acknowledge our sins and then ask for God’s pardon and mercy…

HOMILY PROPER

If you must pray for or against anything, please don’t forget to pray not to be rejected. One of the worst things that can happen to any person is to be rejected or feel rejected. The psychological harm of rejection is huge. Studies have shown that people who were somehow rejected during their childhood grew up feeling socially insecure, psychologically inferior and emotionally wounded. In the olden days, rejection or banishment was the order of the day: people were rejected or banished whenever the community deemed it necessary, for reasons best known to them. The readings of this Sunday address the problem of exclusion and rejection. 

For the Jews, the most dreaded of all sicknesses is leprosy, a disease that makes the sufferer unclean and renders him unfit to be in the community. As evident in Leviticus 13:1-2.44-46, once declared unclean by a priest, a leper cannot stay in the midst of others or come in contact with any person. He is sent out of the community or camp of Israel and shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp. A bell will be hung around his neck and he must continuously shout: Unclean! Unclean! He will wear tattered clothes and keep his hair unkempt. He will remain in this condition until he is declared clean by a priest when he is free of leprosy. That was the unfortunate situation of a leper in the Jewish culture. 

I may pause here to ask: Are there lepers in our time? Yes, there are. Ours may not just be a case of physical leprosy. It may be more of social and spiritual leprosy. We have put up attitudes; we have set up structures; we have advanced systems and encouraged practices that keep people out of our reach. It may not be directly expressed, but deep within, many of us have strongly believed that certain individuals or groups of people are unfit, unworthy, unwanted, unclean and unaccepted possibly on the basis of race, tribe, nationality, social and financial standing, and so on. I ask again: Are there lepers in our time? Yes, there are. Few are suffering from physical leprosy. But a greater number have been inflicted with social leprosy and have been treated as lepers by the very society which has refused to accept and accommodate them, even in the Church. Many more are suffering from spiritual leprosy; and it is the leprosy all of us can identify with: the leprosy of sin.        

In the gospel (cf. Mk. 1:40-45), the first reaction of Jesus when the leper came to him was that of great compassion: He was “MOVED WITH PITY”. Yes, that leper was rejected by his community but was not rejected by Jesus. He was confined to perish out of existence but Jesus made him whole, restored his life so that he could rejoin his community. Jesus understood his terrible situation, healed him of his leprosy and restored his dignity and self-worth. Jesus came to proclaim liberation to the poor, to the outcast and to those who have been imprisoned and rendered social lepers by unjust and wicked structures and cultural systems. But it still baffles me that we Christians, the so-called followers of Jesus, are even among those who encourage, aid, abet and set up structures that exclude and keep other people out of the life of our communities. If we are Christians, let us be Christians indeed not by name.    

All of us are also prone to suffer from spiritual leprosy, the leprosy of sin. Just like leprosy, sin makes us spiritually unclean and separates us from God and from the Church. When we sin, we not only offend God, we also wound the mystical body of Christ (which is the Church) of which we are members. Let us go to Jesus: He alone can make us clean again. Since we also offend the Church (the Mystical Body of Christ) whenever we sin, we must also seek reconciliation with the Church through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Yes, we can obtain forgiveness directly from God when we confess. But we must also go to the priest, the representative of Christ and the Church, for complete and total reconciliation and restoration in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And that is why Jesus did not tell the leper to go home after his healing; He instructed him to go and show himself to a priest and make the necessary sacrifices needed for his full restoration to the community.