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.” (Mk 1:40-45)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011124.cfm
The healing of the leper occurs in the very first chapter of the gospel that church tradition calls “According to Mark.” (The gospel itself does not tell us the identity of the writer.) The remarkable part of the healing is that Jesus touches the leper and then tells the person to say nothing to anyone. Instead the person spreads it abroad and so Jesus can no longer “enter a town openly,” but rather like a leper, he stays in deserted places. Yet people keep “coming to him from everywhere.”
These reflections are a result of more than 40 years of ministry as a Roman Catholic priest. Most of these years I spent in the Diocese of Charlotte which covers Western North Carolina. Now I am retired, and live in Medellín, Colombia where I continue to serve as a priest in the Archdiocese of Medellín.
Thursday, Week I, Ordinary Time
