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February 15, 2015“Unclean, unclean!” From the first Scripture reading, the leper must cry out: “Unclean, unclean.” In contrast to living with this stigma and separation from society, the leper in the Gospel account came to Jesus, begging on his knees, saying, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Jesus responds, “I do wish. Be made clean.”
Could there have been more perfect scriptures to prepare ourselves for our Lenten journey? For each of us, if we honestly look at our inmost hearts and daily lives, must confess at least something that, like the Gospel’s leper, that needs to be made clean. And to each of us, may we hear the words of Jesus spoken to the Gospel leper, “I do will it. Be made clean.”
Today’s Gospel prepares us for our Lenten journey of 40 days. We begin this Wednesday with ashes marked on our foreheads. The words spoken to us as we receive these ashes are: “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” With these ashes, we acknowledge that we belong to the order of penitents. We stand in need of the Lord’s healing forgiveness. In our Lenten journey, we embrace the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and alms giving. In turning from sin, we seek the conversion experience of placing God first in our lives.
Then the 40 days of Lent lead us to the three days of the Sacred Triduum in which we share in the paschal mystery of the dying and rising of Christ Jesus. Then we enter the 50 of the Easter Season in which we share in the Risen Life of Jesus. The Easter Season culminates with the great feast of Pentecost, the feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the first disciples.
To prepare ourselves, we begin during this Lenten season by acknowledging our own leprosy that separates us from a fuller experience of God’s love in our lives. In this Lenten season, may we celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation in a grace-filled way. I like to think of this beautiful sacrament as whispering into the ears of our merciful and compassionate God the story of our life in a way that we have never been able to tell anyone. Then the words of Jesus spoken to us: “I do will it. Be made clean.”
Our leprosy is the sinfulness of our lives that separates from God’s love. In our Lenten journey, indeed may we turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.
As we pray over this Gospel, we also need to reflect on our attitudes on the people in our lives whom we find undesirable – as lepers in the sense we don’t want anything to do with them. We want to keep then separated from us.
Mother Theresa said: “The biggest disease is not leprosy or tuberculosis but rather the disease of being unwanted.” Leprosy was the most dreaded of all diseases at that time because it separated people from their family and their community and thus constituted a “living death.”
We need to do an inventory to see if there are folks who would feel unwelcome in our Church who, if they walked in our door this minute, would feel the questioning stares of others. Listen to this partial list and ask where you would shut the door:
--the unkempt homeless, who may smell bad.
--the homosexual
--divorced and remarried.
--the illegal immigrant.
--the alcoholic or drug addict.
--the mentally ill, who may be disruptive.
--the woman who has had an abortion,
-the former convict?
Jesus came to save and heal them—just as much as he did you and me.
To the extent that we are judgmental and prejudge others, we are in need of Christ’s healing touch. We need to be able to see Christ in others, to have Christ’s compassion for the powerless, the poor, the hurting in mind, body, and spirit. We need to get to the place where we are able to “kiss the leper” of our day.
As we do our pre-lenten inventory of ourselves, how many of us in this Church think, “If these people knew such-and-such about me, they wouldn’t welcome me either.” Many hide behind a façade of acceptability, never believing that they could be loved and embraced as they really are.
May we see ourselves as a hospital for sinners, rather than a hotel for saints. We all need healing. That is what the ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday signify. How wonderful it would be if we could be transparent, be ourselves, come just as you are, and feel accepted. Not that we condone sin, but that we love each other.
