Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (February 12^th 2012)    

Mark 1:40-45

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Questions raised by this passage from the Gospel

1 Do I believe that drawing close to Christ will have unpleasant consequences for my lifestyle? Or do I believe that it will bring healing and liberation?

2. Am I inclined to think that I have to be holy before God will do great things for me? Or do I believe that God will touch me when I am still unclean?

3. Does God's will for me involve unpleasant duties that I have to carry out? Or is it something primarily directed towards bringing me to the fullness of life?

4. Do I believe that I can achieve great things while I am still in a state of infirmity before God? Or is healing by God a necessary stage that must be gone through before I can live the healthy life?

5. Is the Lord's action in our lives directed towards attaining the adulation of the multitudes, or genuine encounter with individuals?

A Gospel story that is full of significant gestures

The Gospel stories recount concrete events in the life of Jesus, but they are placed before us so that we can connect them to aspects of our own existence. In this story recounting the healing of a leper, there are a number of gestures that are highly significant for us, but they might go unnoticed in a superficial reading of the text. A leper approaches Jesus and pleads before him on his knees. This act of placing himself before the Lord on his knees is the act of one who supplicates or prays. The suffering of the leper has transformed itself into prayer. Who is this leper, and what leads him to make this beautiful entreaty, "If you want to, you can heal me"? The condition of leprosy is one of the most terrible diseases imaginable. One's very flesh is in a state of decomposition while one is still alive. The Law of Moses required that lepers live separately from normal human habitation. When non-lepers drew near, the leper was required to cry out "Unclean!  Unclean!" The leper, thus, was obliged to denounce himself, and the condemnation for his condition was one of isolation.

The leper recognizes that we need to approach Jesus and be close to Him

In the case that we consider today in the Gospel, the solitude of the leper becomes the springboard that drives him to approach Jesus. The law demands that he remain isolated and refrain from contact with others, but, in the case of Jesus, the leper ignores the rules and draws near. This Gospel has interesting parallels with the Gospel that we read two weeks ago in which the unclean spirit in the synagogue cried out to Jesus, "Stay away from us! You have come to destroy us!" In today's Gospel, we have man who is "unclean", and it is he who approaches Jesus looking for healing. These two readings inspire us to reflect on just who Jesus is. Is he the one we should keep away from, as the evil spirit believed, or is he the one that we should approach for help?

The leper recognizes that Jesus wants what is good for us

The leper comes close to Jesus and says, "If you want to, you can heal me". The evil spirit believed that Jesus would destroy him, but the leper believes that Jesus can free him, do good for him, give new life to him, defeat the death that is already making itself evident in his diseased flesh. This prayer arises from an awareness of solitude and abandonment. Genuine prayer always arises from the awareness of one's own vulnerability, one's own limits, one's own emptiness, from the desire to escape from one's own condition of isolation. This leper knows how to pray, and his prayer touches the heart of Jesus who has compassion for him. Here is revealed the motive and the source of our liberation: the compassion of the Lord. Jesus is able to understand the darkness of our isolation and his only desire is for our good.

The gestures of Jesus are a liturgy in themselves

In response to this anguish, Jesus makes a series of gestures that constitute a kind of liturgy in themselves. He stretches out his hand, touches the diseased man and says, "I want to. Be healed". The Christian liturgy is composed of gestures and words, and here we have a gesture and a word. It is not enough to say, "I want to. Be healed". And it is not enough simply to touch the leper. A simple word in itself, or a simple caress in itself, is not sufficient. What is needed instead is a relationship in all of its fullness.

            In this act of touching the leper, Jesus breaks the regulations. It was not permitted by law to approach a leper, and it was certainly not permitted to touch him. Jesus touches the leper before he is healed. He touches him while he is still sick, while he is still putrid. He touches him and says "I want to! Be healed!"

God's will for us is not something negative 

There is a play on words here. The leper says "If you want to, you can heal me". Jesus replies, "I want to. Be healed". This play on words reveals what it is that God wants to do. It uncovers the will of God for us. This poor leper has understood that the Lord wishes for his good, and Jesus confirms that with his reply. We are often inclined to think that the will of God is something that makes unpleasant demands on us. When we say "Your will be done", we feel that we are handing our lives over to God so that he can do things with us that we do not want. This is simply not true! The will of God coincides perfectly with his compassion. The will of God is that we be healed. The will of God is that process by which we are touched by God, made clean, and led to a state of life that is finally free.

Healing is a necessary stage that must be gone through before I can live the healthy life

It is important to note that healing is a fundamental step in the spiritual life. Sometimes we think that we can do great things, achieve great spiritual results, without passing through the stage of healing. That process of being touched in heart and soul, of being tended to in the depths of our being is a necessary stage in life. We cannot pass from a condition of abandonment directly to the condition of being blessed by God. Jesus stretches out his hand and says to us, "I want to! Be healed!" In this brief interaction there is concentrated the entire process of approaching God, prayerful supplication, and being responded to by Jesus who wishes to heal us.

            The term "purify" that appears in this passage derives from an expression that signifies "not to be of different natures; to be of a single nature". Pure water means that there is nothing else present but water. Before becoming an ethical term, "purify" was a chemical term, and it meant "to be of one reality only". This leper was a man who had death present in his flesh. To be purified signified to be made completely alive. This process of attaining the fullness of life is what Jesus wants. We must become ever more aware that God has only one wish for us, and that is our salvation. The grace that the Lord offers for us is for our salvation, and no other motive.

Jesus does not seek the adulation of the masses, but encounter with the individual

The leprosy disappears from the leper and Jesus gives him a stern warning. In fact he sends him away quite severely! Why does Jesus behave this way? We might expect someone to banish a leper from his sight while the leper still has the disease, but Jesus banishes him when he is healed! It is important that we know how to depart from Christ, in the sense that we must know how to enter into a life of obedience; to pass from the stage of healing to the stage of living the healthy life; to pass from the stage of being looked after by Christ to the stage of being able to fulfil our mission. The leper is instructed to show himself to the priest in order to give witness to what has been accomplished in him. Once the leper goes to the priest and is examined by him, the priest is in a position to allow the leper to re-enter the life of the normal healthy person. But the man disobeys! This demonstrates that it is possible to be healed, and still fail to live the life that should follow naturally from the act of being healed. It is possible to continue along the wrong way, despite having received immense graces from the Lord. The desire of fame, of seeking attention for the graces received, can become more important than the graces themselves. In this respect, the Gospel text gives us great insight into the person of our Lord. Previously, it was the leper who was obliged to remain in isolated and deserted places. Now it is Jesus who retreats into the desert because the leper did not maintain the reserve that has been asked of him. Jesus has no love of fame. He knows the mentality of the masses, who search - not for authentic things - but for things that are of popular appeal. He withdraws from this multitude because he wishes to encounter each individual personally. The holy people of God is composed of individuals who have had this personal encounter of grace with the Lord