The Compassion of our God

“I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation.”  In today’s first reading, Lev 13: 1-2, 44-46, and the Gospel, Mark 1:40-45, we are told the story of the fate of a leper. In the Old Testament as in the New, a leper was considered unclean and had to declare him/herself so.  That did not necessarily mean that the leprosy left that person, however. In the Gospel, Jesus reveals to us God’s compassion. When the leper approached Jesus and said “If you wish you can make me clean,” Jesus, “Moved with pity, …stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, ‘I do will it. Be made clean.”

Jesus wills that you and I be made clean, purified from all of that which ostracizes us from becoming one heart and one mind with others in the search for Truth, in efforts to assist the poor and oppressed, in our desire for wholeness and in whatever we do to make the world as better place.  When, like the leper, we approach Jesus and ask to be made clean, to be purified, to be reconciled with our deepest self (our God-self, the Spirit of God within us), to be cleansed of sin and its effects, Jesus says to us: “I do will it. Be made clean.” May we have that confidence in approaching the Sacrament of Reconciliation where the Lord awaits to make us whole.