Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time 15th February 2009

A new born baby needs food and warmth to survive. Thank God most of us get a good start in that way. Also, the new born baby has a need to continue attaching to a care giver as has happened during the nine months in the womb. By this attachment the baby has a sense of security which grows into a sense of belonging and mattering as she or he develops. Just as the food and warmth are essential for life so is the sense of security and belonging.

When we are born into the family of God, the community reinforces our sense of belonging to Christ and to each other. Imagine if you were totally ostracised with clear messages given that you do not belong and that you are not counted as mattering to a community. Some people feel this for various reasons. It is so painful for the person and perhaps that explains why loneliness is such a factor in society today and in some extreme situations a killer.

This sense of being outside the community worried Jesus. He talked about being the Good Shepherd and looking out for the stray. Today He meets one who didn’t just imagine that he did not belong; the leper was told he did not belong. He was told to keep away from other people and to shout out a warning if anyone got close. ‘Unclean, unclean’ was to be the call warning off other people if they got close. Isaiah describes the guilty people of God as lepers.

One day a brave one with leprosy plucked up the courage and came right up to Jesus. He said something very direct to Him, ‘if you want to you can cure me’. The leper knew not to presume anything about his fellow human beings. Maybe this healer and wonder-worker might say, ‘go away as you have been told, I don’t want anything to do with you’. The leper would not have been totally surprised by that. Can you imagine his excitement and delight when he heard those wonderful words from the lips of Jesus, ‘of course I want to’. He can hardly believe what he hears next. ‘Be cured’. And low and behold he was cured!

Jesus did not want the cured leper to lose the run of himself and go around telling all and sundry about the healing he had just received from Jesus. Yet, God knows, you could not blame him if he did. His life would never be the same again. He can now come back into the village, get a job, maybe meet someone and get married, start a family but most of all know that he belonged to God and to his fellow human beings. The command of Jesus not to say a word about the healing proved too difficult and he tells the story everywhere.

Now look at what happens. The leper is back among the people and ‘Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived’. What a reversal! Jesus is now outside the villages and towns where the leper used to be! Jesus would not have it any other way. He must have been so delighted for the leper getting back among people.

A great event and a great healing miracle of Jesus are given for our imitation. But who are the excluded today? Who does not belong to a community? Who has to keep their distance? Who would love to come back among us and belong again? Do I or do you know where this person or this group of people are and could we be Christ-like and bring them back home? Wouldn’t that be really great and can you imagine how Jesus will smile when He sees this happen?

there is the hand of Jesus asking for your hand. Just stretch it out and see what happens

Aidan Troy, C.P. (Aodhán Ó Troighthigh, C.P.)