A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once. 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.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Opposite Worlds.
An unclean heart in the times of Jesus was confused with leprosy. The leper makes a direct call to the Heart of Jesus when he says, “If you wish…”. That “if you wish” could perfectly be replaced by “if you love me…”.
So, in the face of this plea for love, Jesus is moved and touches the leper. At that moment, two opposite worlds come into contact: the world of impurity and the world of purity. Leprosy in contact with human flesh overcomes human nature. In contrast, in contact with divinity, it is inexorably defeated.
Today, as a sinful spouse, I kneel and plead: Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.
Applied to Married Life:
Matt: (With his head bowed before the Blessed Sacrament next to Lorraine, his wife) Lord, why have you entrusted me with this wife if I am not worthy of her? I don’t give her the understanding she needs; I don’t treat her with the delicacy befitting a Princess, the daughter of the King of Kings. But if you wish, you can cleanse me of my pride.
Lorraine: Lord, I can’t understand Matt’s ways. I can’t love him as he deserves because I don’t accept his roughness and what I sometimes judge as hardness of heart. But Lord, if you wish, you can cleanse me of my pride.
The Lord: Of course, I love you. Have you noticed a certain pain in your soul due to each other’s attitudes? Well, love that pain because it is what I send you to purify yourselves.
Mother,
If you love us, do not abandon us in this valley of tears, Mother of Mercy, our advocate.