12th January >> Fr. Martin's Reflection on Today's Gospel Reading (Mark 1:40-45) Thursday, First Week in Ordinary Time: 'Of course I want to'. (2024)

Thursday, First Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Canada & South Africa)

Mark 1:40-45

A leper came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees: ‘If you want to’ he said ‘you can cure me.’ Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. ‘Of course I want to!’ he said. ‘Be cured!’ And the leprosy left him at once and he was cured. Jesus immediately sent him away and sternly ordered him, ‘Mind you say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering for your healing prescribed by Moses as evidence of your recovery.’ The man went away, but then started talking about it freely and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. Even so, people from all around would come to him.

Gospel (USA)

Mark 1:40-45

The leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

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.” The 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.

Reflections (5)

(i) Thursday, First Week in Ordinary Time

Making choices is something that we do every day. We try to choose well, to make the best choice possible, the choice that the Lord would want us to make. We don’t always succeed in choosing well; sometimes, we make choices the Lord would not have wanted us to make. In the gospel reading, a leper comes up to Jesus and says, ‘If you want to – if you choose – you can cure me’. The leper could not presume that Jesus would choose to heal him, because lepers were not supposed to approach others; they were to keep out of the way, for fear they would contaminate others. However, in reply, Jesus said to him, ‘Of course I want to! Be cured’. Jesus chose to do what nobody else would have chosen to do; he reached out and touched the leper and, as a result, his leprosy was healed. In the gospels, Jesus is consistently portrayed as choosing to make contact with those who are broken in body, mind or spirit, and who are not part of the mainstream. The risen Lord continues make those same choices; he chooses to connect with each of us in our own brokenness. He will always be a healing and life-giving presence in our lives. He asks us to be the same for each other, to make the kinds of choices that bring healing and new life to others.

And/Or

(ii) Thursday, First Week in Ordinary Time

A leper in the time of Jesus was someone who lived in places where nobody lived. Lepers lived outside the community with only each other for company. For a leper to approach Jesus for healing was a very daring thing to do; he was doing something that was forbidden. For Jesus to respond to the leper’s plea by touching him was also a very daring thing to do. Lepers were the untouchables. The leper and Jesus have something in common; they both were prepared to break with very strongly enforced convention in the search for healing and a fuller life. Jesus and the leper turn out to have something else in common as well. According to the gospel reading, because the leper started talking about his healing freely and everywhere, against Jesus wishes, Jesus himself had to stay in places where nobody lived. In other words, as a result of his healing the leper, Jesus went on to experience the isolation of the leper. Jesus gave life to others at great cost to himself. Sometimes our own service of others can take a lot out of us; we may be tempted, as a result, to pull back. However, the example of Jesus inspires us to keep serving, trusting that God will bless us because of our service, in God’s own time.

And/Or

(iii) Thursday, First Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus heals a leper. Often in the gospels Jesus heals people by means of his word. In healing the leper, however, Jesus not only spoke to him, but he touched him. In touching the leper, Jesus did what no one else would have done. For obvious reasons, people kept lepers at a distance, and lepers were expected to keep their distance from others. Jesus, however, kept no one at a distance, not even lepers. No one was beyond his reach; no one was untouchable. He came to touch our lives in a very tangible way, all of our lives, regardless of our condition. The leper wasn’t sure whether Jesus wanted to heal him, as is clear from his opening words to Jesus, ‘If you want to, you can cure me’. Jesus showed he wanted to heal him, by touching him. Jesus wants to touch all of our lives, because he wants to bring life to us all. Nothing we do or fail to do, no circ*mstance in which we find ourselves, need place us beyond his reach. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, ‘nothing can come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus’. The Lord touches our lives, where we are, as we are. All we need is something of the leper’s daring initiative in approaching Jesus.

And/Or

(vi) Thursday, First week in Ordinary Time

In the time of Jesus the Jewish Law strictly laid down that lepers cannot come into contact with anyone. They must live in isolation. Yet, in the gospel reading, a leper, in his desperation, dares to defy the Law. He draws near to Jesus, going down on his knees, to make his heart-felt plea, ‘If you want to, you can cure me’. The leper did not doubt Jesus’ power to heal him, but he doubted whether or not Jesus wanted to heal him. Would Jesus engage with a leper who dared to approach him in defiance of the religious Law of the time? Most people would have been angered at the approach of a leper. However, Jesus’ response to the desperate plight of this man was not one of anger, but one of compassion. Jesus’ compassion led him to do the unthinkable, what was forbidden by the Law; he touched the leper and in so doing healed him of his leprosy. Jesus’ compassion broke the boundaries that the Law sought to create. His response to the leper shows that no one is outside the reach of the Lord. Jesus is not in the business of excluding people, regardless of how they are judged by others. The Lord’s compassion knows no limits; it cannot be confined by religious Law. The gospel reading suggests that the Lord’s instinct to include overcomes all the forces that work to exclude. That message is both a reassuring word for us when we feel excluded and a challenging word when we are tempted to exclude others.

And/Or

(v) Thursday, First Week in Ordinary Time

The gospel reading this morning reveals the power of Jesus and, at the same time, his powerlessness. His power was displayed in his healing of the leper. This was a power that was rooted in his compassion and that did not hesitate to break one of the great taboos of the ancient world, touching a leper. This was a life-giving power that was ready to disregard the most hallowed of traditions in order to heal the broken and include the excluded. Whenever we find that kind of life-giving power at work in our world today, there the risen Lord is to be found. Yet, Jesus who was so powerful in healing the man’s leprosy was immediately shown to be powerless. He asked the healed man to be silent about what happened to him. Instead the man went away and started talking about it freely and telling the story everywhere and there was nothing that Jesus could do about it. Indeed, because of the excitement the man stirred up by his story, Jesus could not go openly into any town but have to stay outside in places where nobody lived, which is what the leper had to do before his healing. The man’s refusal to do what Jesus asked had serious consequences for Jesus’ work. There is a sense in which the Lord remains powerless today before our refusal to do what he asks of us. The mystery of human freedom can continue to render Jesus powerless. He needs us to respond with a ready and open heart to his call and his will for our lives. Only then will his life-giving work be done in today’s world.

Fr Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland.

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