It Is God's Will

MARK 1: 40-45
A leper came to him and kneeling down begged  him and said,  "If you wish, you can make me clean."

Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him, 
"I do will it. Be made clean."
Leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.
Then he said to him, "See that you tell no one anything,
but go, show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them."
The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.

We have no idea what it meant to be a leper in the time of Jesus. First of all, many different skin conditions could be considered leprosy some of which were not.  The people of the time thought that leprosy was very contagious and so a person with a suspected case was cut off from his community. He was fated to live a life outside the family that loved him and he was forbidden to even come close to the temple or synagogue and that for an observant Jew was the worst thing about the condition, he was cut off from Yahweh's people.  Worse than that, the common belief was that he was being punished for some sin that he or one of his ancestors committed so he was not the target for any sympathy from the populace.  

The leper in our story had heard of Jesus and how he had been able to cure some people. It was hard for him but he presented himself to Jesus and prostrated himself and said that if Jesus would will him to be clean, he would be clean.  Jesus was moved with great pity and noted the man's humility and faith and told him that it was His will that he be cured. The man was immediately cured and Jesus asked him not to make a big deal about it and told him just to make the required thank offering at the temple as Moses had commanded but the man spread news of his cure far and wide. 

There is a terrible disease that is affecting a lot of people today.  It is not a pretty disease and it ravages those that have like no other plague ever seen by man on this earth. It is a killer disease and is one-hundred percent fatal to those who refuse treatment for it, and many do refuse because they think that they are healthy.  The disease is self-righteousness which is afflicting many of us.  We have lost the sense of sin in our lives.  Some of us delude ourselves in thinking that our life is one in which we have defeated sin and we are blameless before God and man.  This spiritual myopia is a quite curable if we want it to be cured.  All we need to do is to take the medicine that has been offered by Jesus. For us Catholics, we need to sit back and examine our conscience after asking the Holy Spirit to reveal our sins.  An honest review is the first step. Our leper friend knew he was a leper when he approached Jesus, we must know and acknowledge that we are sinners as we approach Him.  Then what?  Do we pray to Jesus asking for forgiveness?  Sure, why not?  But we must not stop at this point.  We must, with all humility, face our sins, face to face with Jesus and His Church in the sacrament of reconciliation.  It is here that we receive the forgiveness of Jesus for sure and forever. Here too we receive the wisdom on how to avoid committing sins again, and it is here that we prayerfully express our sorrow and receive the forgiveness of Christ and His Church.  Why do we need the forgiveness of His Church? This is because no sin is committed that does not affect the Body of Christ in some way, shape, or form.  We sin in community and the community forgives us and we heal the brokenness of our relationship with Christ and His community. 

Confession? Is this really necessary?  Verbalizing our faults will make us own them and let us see we are not as perfect as we had thought ourselves to be.  We will begin to see us as God sees us and because we have humbly expressed our sorrow and asked to be made clean, just like the leper, we will be welcomed back into the community and we will take our place as a follower of Christ. 

Sin can be forgiven in the confessional and that restores the relationship between us and God. What remains is the effect of sin on our soul.  The poor souls in Purgatory are saved by Christ's death on the cross and will attain heaven. What they are doing in Purgatory is removing the attachments to sin that may be left on the soul. They need our prayers.  Please pray for them today. So many are there who have no one to pray for them.  Say this prayer for them today:

According to tradition, St. Gertrude the Great was told by Our Lord that the following prayer, each time she piously recited it, would release 1,000 souls (or a vast number) from their suffering in purgatory:

“Eternal Father,
I offer You the most precious blood
of thy Divine Son, Jesus,
in union with the Masses said
throughout the world today,
for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory,
for sinners everywhere,
for sinners in the universal Church,
for those in my own home,
and in my family. Amen.”

Trust

"There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.   

He asked himself, 'What shall I do,

for I do not have space to store my harvest?'

And he said, 'This is what I shall do:

I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.

There I shall store all my grain and other goods

and I shall say to myself, "Now as for you,

you have so many good things stored up for many years,

rest, eat, drink, be merry!"'

But God said to him,

'You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;

and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?'

Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself

but is not rich in what matters to God."

I think that this is a good reminder for us at the start of another work week.  There is dignity in all labor and all of us are called to some form of it during the time we live on earth.  We work to provide for ourselves the things that we need to survive on this planet.   I think that it is a little bit more than what the guy on the commercial says we need; Food, Water, and Intenet.  But we do need to somehow get the basic things we need to live and for most of us, we have to exchange our labor to earn money for these things.  We are warned by Jesus in the parable to guard against all forms of greed.  The man, in this case, decides that he is going to gather all of his riches in one place and then he is going to sit back and enjoy it all.  We see that God has other plans for him.  So, is this man guilty of anything?  He sounds like a commercial for a retirement counselor.  All of us are looking to make it big enough so that we can stop working.  That is okay, there is nothing wrong in that.  We are just reminded to be aware that we can be called at any time and that the riches we have so carefully accumulated will belong to someone else when we die.  We are to keep things in perspective and to trust God more than trusting in our own abilities.

Our Father has prepared for us a place that we cannot begin to imagine.  This is where we will receive our true rest and out true happiness.  Trust in God and you will be forever glad.