"I will do it. Be made clean."

When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him.

And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said,
"Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean."

He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said,
"I will do it. Be made clean."

His leprosy was cleansed immediately.

Life in the time of Jesus was hard and while the Jews enjoyed many "modern" benefits and thanks to the religious rules they followed were healthier than the population at large there was still the scourge of leprosy that had to be dealt with.  Five percent of the people contracted the disease.  Ounce you were diagnosed with the malady you did not receive medicines and sympathy, no, you received banishment and shunning.  So, this bacteria was an agent of change in a person's life.  Once infected you left your family and friends and you had to depend on others for help.  The disease is not particularly contagious but can be spread by contact with the skin or a cough but this is exceedingly rare.  It is related to the tuberculosis bacteria which also was endemic during the period.  Leprosy is thought of a skin disease but it is more of a disease of the nerves.  The bacillus attacks the nerves and destroys the patient's ability to feel pain.  One modern leper, Father Damien who served the lepers in Hawaii discovered that he had contracted the disease when by accident he stepped into a pot of boiling water and felt no pain.  The disease does not kill, it just disfigures and desensitizes. 

So, in the time of Jesus, lepers were shunned.  They were to keep away from the population and stay with their own kind. Should a leper see a group of people approaching he was to ring a bell to catch the attention of the people and yell, "Unclean, Unclean!" so that the walkers could make their way around them.  They were shunned too because their affliction was seen to be a punishment from God for sins that they had committed. So in our reading today a couple of things jump out.  First, this leper disobeyed the first rule of being a leper, he approached a crowd of "clean" people. Jesus too broke a rule, he touched the leper, technically making himself unclean until sundown.  But Jesus was known to not always follow the common every-day rules.  The leper, displaying his faith in Jesus says that if Jesus' wills it then the leper could be cured.  Jesus, using the faith of the man, said that He did will it and the leper was cured on the spot. 

Sin is an awful lot like leprosy.  It starts small and can grow until it affects the whole person. It also resembles leprosy in that as it takes hold, we become less sensitive to the consequences of our actions until we develop a full blown infection and we walk away from God.  It may take some time before we realize what we have done to ourselves and how injured we really are.  When we do realize that we are infected, that we are unclean, we can always turn to the Lord and He will cure us of our ills. 

We Catholics are very fortunate indeed.  We have a sacrament where we can be absolutely and positively certain that our confessed sins have been forgiven by the Lord and His Church.  It is a shame that so many fail to take advantage of this Sacrament that the Protestants neither have nor do they understand.  In the Sacrament of Confession or Reconciliation, as it is also called, we experience first hand the mercy and love of Jesus as He, through his minister, welcomes us home.  When the priest extends his hand and utters the words of absolution no magic takes place, only healing and forgiveness.  Take a moment and ask yourself why you are so reluctant to go to confession?   If the last time you went was twenty years ago, so what!  The Gospel does not say how long the Prodigal Son was away from home, it only states that he came home and his father threw him a welcome home party.  Jesus already knows your sins, whatever you confess will not be a surprise to Him.  What confession does is it allows you to honestly look at yourself and to get the help that you need to live a happier life here on earth and to become closer to the Lord so that you can live with Him forever in Heaven.