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The goal of spiritual life is to let oneself be increasingly open to the God our creator and the Lord of all creation. The Liturgy beautifully planned unfold to us the life of Jesus, God made man, by reliving the events of his life and connecting it to the natural change of seasons. The gospel stories this year are being told by Mark, just as they were told last year by Matthew. The most vivid of the gospels is Mark’s. He is direct and uses fewer words, but he has more concrete details. He makes us to be present when the event is taking place and we can have a visual image of the happening. During my priestly ministry in the frontier missions in North East India and Africa, I have noticed that those who enter the Church as new Christians accept the teaching of Jesus primarily because of the Gospel of Mark. Last week Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law. He “grasped her hand and helped her up.” When Jesus stills the storm at sea, he is not just “in the boat,” he is “at the stern” of it according to Mark, and he is not just asleep, but asleep “on a cushion.”
Mark’s approach helps us to get the texture of the story, to listen with our imaginations, to let the life of Jesus enter in. As we receive Jesus, the Word of God, we open to the God of all creation. We share his life spiritually, partaking of it in ritual: we recall it in the liturgy of the Word and we receive it as Sacrament. Whether we realize it explicitly or not, our goal is to “know him more clearly, love him more dearly, follow him more nearly” as the beautiful song from Godspell, the Broadway musical composed by Stephen Schwartz renders it.
We might notice several things in this Sunday’s Gospel: the man who walks up to Jesus covered with scales and scabs is breaking the law. As long as he has sores, he should “dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp,” according to the explicit instructions of the First Reading. He should be ringing a bell and crying out “Unclean, unclean!” But Jesus is “moved with pity.” Just three words, but they tell us so much. Jesus treats him like a human being worthy of attention.
The leper has a special type of faith which makes him say, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” He has to believe in Jesus’ power in order to say such a thing. Jesus answers, “I do will it. Be made clean.” Direct, honest, so revelatory of God. He commands and there is creation. He commands there is a new creation of healed human being. The whole life of Jesus seems to consist of this desire to help those who are in trouble, to give to those who have a seed of faith, who are sharing in “spirituality.”
Finally, in an extraordinary move, Jesus stretches out his hand and touches the man. The ancient belief was that this sickness was communicable, and at the very least it was disgusting. Yet Jesus reaches out to him with care and says, “Be made clean.” Can we spend some time today to encounter this God who deeply cares for us?
Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.