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Homily:
6th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
One of the most indispensible parts, it seems, of any
intimate relationship is touch. Parents
touch their children regularly in order to show them their care and
affection. A husband and wife will hug
and kiss each other when they are coming and going or when they get up in the
morning or go to bed at night, and various other times in between. Children who are best friends will walk side
by side each other with an arm around the other’s shoulder (“they’re ‘joined at
the hip’” is the common expression).
Grown men, sometimes less comfortable with more sensitive expressions of
intimacy, will often slap their friends on the shoulder as a sign of camaraderie. And for young couples, holding hands is often
the first expression of a growing affection.
From the opposite standpoint, turning away from touch is often an
indicator that intimacy has been broken or damaged, such as when a husband or a
wife gives their spouse the “cold shoulder.”
As a matter of fact, in the Catholic Church we know this
very well. We ritualize the intimacy of
human touch in the sacraments, most poignantly in the sacrament of the
Anointing of the Sick. February 11, the
feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, is designated in the Church as the “World Day for
the Sick,” in which we remind ourselves of the special place that care for the
sick and dying holds in the life of the Church.
And in the Church’s sacrament for the sick, which is meant to be a
spiritual strengthening for “one who has begun to be in danger of death due to
sickness or old age,” human touch plays a prominent role, in the laying on of
hands and the anointing with oil. And so
again we see that, for humans, touch is important.
In the first reading today, we heard the instructions given
to Moses and Aaron regarding how to handle a person afflicted with leprosy
inside of the community. The ancient Hebrews, like any closely knit community,
were deeply concerned with maintaining the purity and health of their community. And so, whenever someone in the community
became afflicted with an exteriorly visible sickness—such as the sores that
appear on the skin when one is afflicted with leprosy—this person was obligated
to separate themselves from the community so as to avoid spreading the disease
(because they didn’t understand how this person became afflicted with it and,
thus, how it might be spread to another) and so maintain the purity of the community. Thus, the segregation of lepers was intended
to ensure that the rest of the community was kept safe from defilement through
contact with them. As a result, the
physical suffering of the leprous person was compounded by an emotional
suffering as he or she was literally cut off from all human touch, and, thus,
intimacy, for fear of making others sick and “unclean”.
One only needs to look at the crisis of the Ebola epidemic
in western Africa to see a modern example of this. In this case, we are all well aware of the
highly communicable nature of the Ebola virus and thus impose strict
segregation on those afflicted with it.
We can all perhaps imagine how depressing it would be not only to be
afflicted with a life-threatening illness, but then to endure weeks in which
your only human contact is through doctors and medical staff covered head to
toe in protective garments for fear of making “flesh-to-flesh” contact with
your body. If you can imagine that, then
you will have a sense of what it was like to be afflicted with leprosy among
the ancient Hebrews.
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, we find a leper
who was so moved by faith in Christ’s power to heal him that he completely
disregarded the rules regarding the segregation of lepers and approached Jesus
in order to beg him for healing. Jesus
knew well the purity laws and what he would have to go through if he touched
this man (just think of the reports of what health care workers had to go
through if they came into direct contact with an Ebola patient). He also knew that he would not have to touch
this man in order to heal him of his leprosy.
He knew that a simple word would affect the cure. Yet, he saw more than a physical ailment in
this man. He saw the emotional suffering
of shame and humiliation that comes from being cut off from one’s community and
he knew that more than just a word was needed to make him whole again. Thus, the Gospel tells us that Jesus was
“moved with pity” and that he first touched the man before he pronounced his
words of healing. No, it wasn’t the
touch that healed the man of his leprosy, Christ’s word alone was
sufficient. It was the touch, however,
that made him feel human, connected again with the community that was his life.
Of course it’s easy to see modern day examples of leprosy
in our own society. I’ve already
mentioned the situation of those afflicted with Ebola and it doesn’t end
there. We simply need to look around at
those who have been marginalized and pushed “outside the camp” of our daily
living so as not to defile our efforts to live a “pure” life. It also would be easy to remind ourselves of
our duty to respond to these individuals as Jesus did by reaching out to them,
touching them, helping them to find healing, and inviting them to join the
community once again. What is not so
easy for us is to look inwardly, at ourselves, in order to discover the
spiritual leprosy of sin that afflicts each of us.
St. Bede, in commenting on this passage, has said: “This
man prostrated himself on the ground, as a sign of humility and shame, to teach
each of us to be ashamed of the stains of his [or her own] life. But shame should not prevent us from
confessing: the leper showed his
wound and begged for healing.” St.
Terese of Liseux has said that shame for our sins should never prevent us from
reaching out to Jesus. In fact, she has
said, our increasing awareness of and shame for our sins should make us reach
out all the more desperately to him, because the more that we acknowledge our
sinfulness, the more that we openly show our wounds to Jesus, the more, in a
sense, attractive we are to him, to his mercy, and thus he is more moved to
touch us and to heal us.
My brothers and sisters, the trick to living the Christian
life is not just in reaching out to the marginalized in our society, the
modern-day lepers with “outward” afflictions, which we must do. Rather, the trick is being able to first
recognize our own afflictions, our own leprosy, and having the courage—or
rather the faith—to throw ourselves down before God, before Jesus, and beg for
his mercy.
As his Body, the Church, Jesus wants us to be his hands in
this world, bringing his healing touch to those who need it. He wants his hands to be pure, however. And so, as we seek to extend Christ’s
ministry of mercy to those around us, let us acknowledge also our need for
healing and thus seek out the sacrament of reconciliation, so that we might be
truly open to share each other’s burdens.
And finally, my brothers and sisters, let us give thanks, as we do here
today, for Christ’s saving mercy, so that we may go forth from this place
making known the good things he has done for us.
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