Leprosy was a terrible disease for a member of the nation of
Israel to contract. Humanly, it meant that you were one moment a person with a
home, a member of your people, living a respectable life in the community. The
next, as the leprous lesions appeared, you became an outcast; expelled from
your home, your town, from all normal patterns of life. You were forced to
cover your face, which would become ravaged by the disease. You had to scrape a
living based on the generosity of those who would leave food for you at a safe
distance. You had to proclaim yourself vocally as “unclean.” Since few, if any,
recovered, it was in effect a death sentence, lived out in exile from all that
was once yours; home, family and community.
In addition, such a sickness was also seen in Israel as a
curse, a punishment for sin. That is why the Jewish priests had to declare someone with the dreaded lesions as unclean.
As well as the religious ban, the community had to protect itself from what was
a seriously threatening contagious disease. In those times, the only viable
option was ejection from the community. It was a terrible, hard measure, but
there was no other form of protection that was available to the people of the
time.
Against this background, we can imagine what Jesus’ healing
must have meant to the lepers he cured. Re-admittance to the community, to
family, to a comfortable and respectable home lifestyle. No longer an outcast,
despised and feared by the community – it is no wonder that former lepers
responded with such joy to Jesus’ healing actions. Freed from the curse implied
by the disease, returning not only to the community but to a relationship with
God, was, for a healed leper, the ultimate joy.
Leprosy is a symbol of the effects of sin in our lives. Sin distances
us from God and his Church, and the more we allow it to become a part of our
lives, the more it can distance us from God. Like the lepers in the New
Testament, we need to seek out Jesus, to plead for his forgiveness, to seek his
mercy, which makes us whole again. He has given us the wonderful sacrament of
Reconciliation, in which we can experience his forgiveness by confessing our
sins and receiving absolution. There is no sin he cannot or will not forgive, if only we are truly sorry for committing
it. How many times did Jesus say to those whom he healed, “Go and sin no
more”? He says it to us still today. We need to seek his mercy with all our
hearts, that we may be freed from the effects of sin in our lives, free to live among his people, in his Church; to
approach him with joy and freedom.
Fr. Phillip
