February 12th 2012: Sunday Gospel Reflection

Mark 1:40-45

"If you wish, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, [Jesus] stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, "I do will it. Be made clean."

The man in today’s Gospel was a leper who had sores all over his skin. Because of his leprosy the man was forced to live apart from his family and friends and community. Imagine being forced to the margins of society not able to participate in sports, church, school, work, community etc. but rather, required to live away from human contact. How would this make you feel? Would you be able to live life to the full this way?

In some way each of us can relate to the leper who is unclean, in need of healing. We carry around wounds, internal sores, like selfishness, greed, depression, pride, addiction, self-doubt, self-hate, hopelessness, etc. Notice that Jesus does not ask the man to do something before he is healed. He isn’t asked to prove it or earn it. God offers us healing love unconditionally if only we are ready and willing to accept it. Take some time to consider the image of Jesus reaching His hand out to you to lift you up and to heal you! How does that make you feel? Do you believe you are worth it? Do you believe that God could love you that much?

Today, hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions more throughout the world continue to physically live on the margins of society, cut off from family, friends and community. This is perhaps due to material wealth, unfortunate circumstance, loneliness or mental health, but regardless of the cause this is not God’s will for these people.

Jesus of Nazareth will not extend His physical hand out to heal these people as He did to the man in the Gospel, but He does offer Himself fully to us in the Eucharist so that we might be nourished and transformed into Christ so that we might be empowered to reach out to others as the hand of Christ, to offer His healing love to the world starting in our own homes, schools, work places and communities, and continuing like a ripple to the whole world. Christ has no body now but yours, no hands but yours in this world –St. Theresa of Avila

Questions of the week:

-How can we receive Jesus’ healing love in our lives? (be concrete)

-How can we share the healing love of Jesus with those in our homes, schools, and workplaces? (be concrete)