Thursday of 1st Week, even numbered year
“A leper came and found Jesus and pleaded on his knees : ’If you want to, you can cleanse me. ’Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him and said, ’I want to ; be cleansed.”
Jesus gives us a lovely example of the Gift of life that is in Him. He wants our healing, he knows the price of it, he moves forward and will bear all its consequences. Thus he will save us and will set us free like Himself is free, capable of being responsible in our turn.
Our way of acting in a responsible manner requires of us to accept, to envisage and to undergo the consequences of the acts we make, for everything in this world are linked up to each other.When some good news comes to us, everything changes and we receive the joy linked to this event. Jesus asks this man to remain discreet, this man has to enter into faith, hope and love.
Jesus calls all freedom to a generosity, to grow even more, to love even more, to be given to others, to be open to responsibilities towards others. This is how the Kingdom of Heaven comes about. We do indeed need to be living witnesses, so as to awaken and stand up in faith, hope and a renewed love. We need a great faith, a renewed hop confidence in the Love of God that transforms the world in order to start taking action when faced with the world’s misery. We prepare ourselves in adoration and wait in peace for the grace of God to transform into Love any obstacles in stubborn hearts.
“And at one the leper left him and he was cleansed. Jesus sent him sternly away, saying ’Mind you say not a word to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering prescribed by Moses as evidence to them.”
Jesus addresses this man who has just found his health once again, as well as his capacity to link up with his own people again. Jesu calls forth his liberty, situating him at its true place, as an active member of a community, called to do responsible acts. This what every single person, whoever he or she is and
whatever their capacity may be, is called to. Through all that happens to us, our freedom comes into play, our freedom that exists in the relationship with all other human freedoms. From this time on, our full healing brings about the healing of others, because the other person was implied in the evolution of the illness. But in spite of the Love of God for him, in spite of this Word from Jesus, this man starts to proclaim the news and to spread it! How can this man’s joy be contained, every event triggers off energy that will animate other people. Even so, Jesus will have to avoid public places! We are discreet actors of the great combat for justice and peace played out in the world.
“The man went away, but then started freely proclaiming and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but stayed outside in deserted places. Even so, people from all around kept coming to him.”
Jesus doesn’t run away, he answers this leper’s request to be healed, but situates it on a wider scale. Jesus takes into consideration his place in the community. He responds and assumes what this healing will be for all. We can understand that Jesus questions the way each person takes up their place, how this demand for truth brings enmities against him, but also how True Life attracts Him. A huge recognition is born in our hearts towards Jesus who humbly responds. He wants us to be truly free, free well beyond our own expectations. We offer ourselves tot his Life in order to live as He Himself lived. From the top of the Cross Jesus will cry out : ’My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’ He wanted to become himself this leper, this man condemned to death, to come and seek us out in the depths of all that is infernal in our existence in order to save us.
Jesus’ Life is a secret of love that has us conquer amidst all adversity, sickness and death. Faced with the leper of evil, we recognize our lack of love and interiority, our sinfulness. By the paschal mystery we are at the heart of a great combat for life and justice lived out in the world. And so the desire that God be victorious in us, that we be witnesses of the humiliation of our people in order to call the Holy Spirit and the Salvation of Jesus.