by Dr. Mark Giszczak

Scripture: Lev 13:1-2; 44-46

Have you ever had itchy psoriasis or eczema? Have you ever found mold in your basement or mildew on your clothes? If so, in ancient Israel, you would have needed to invite a Levitical priest to come and look at your clothes, your home, or your skin. Dermatology is not often our first concern when we come to the biblical text, but the mysterious and complex rules about diagnosing skin diseases in Leviticus reveal something deeper. Our status before God is not a private matter, nor is it a function of our own self-perception. Rather, where we stand is an objective state of affairs, and sometimes we need a little clean-up before we are ready to "enter the camp."

What is Leprosy?

The term for "leprosy" in this Sunday's reading from Leviticus 13, one of only two such readings in the 3-year cycle, is a catch-all term for scaly skin diseases—eczema, psoriasis, boils, rashes, burns, scars, favid, vitiligo, etc. Leprosy proper, the dreaded Hansen's disease, is also covered, but it is not the central focus. Hansen's disease was an incurable illness in ancient times. If a person contracted it, he would be permanently excluded from society so that the contagion did not spread. Hence we hear about "leper colonies" like the island of Molokai, where St. Damien ministered to the afflicted and himself contracted the disease. Treatments for leprosy have been around since the 1940's and the rate of new cases has dramatically decreased. But in our passage from Leviticus the text foresees some of these afflictions clearing up on their own (14:3) without medical intervention. A person with any one of these skin diseases would be temporarily excluded from the community until his body was healed (13:45-46).

Ritual Purity

Leviticus in general presents rules for worshipping God with proper sacrifices, laws for maintaining ritual purity so one would be eligible to participate in that worship, and a detailed moral code that applies the principles of the Ten Commandments to daily interactions. Ritual purity is hard for us to understand. It would be easy to think that the rules of Leviticus are merely a primitive way to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, but they are not. They are religious rules for establishing who is and who is not qualified to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer sacrifices. Notice that the priests are mere observers, not healers. None of the rules ask the priests to initiate any kind of therapy, but only to inspect bodies and homes to see whether they are pure or not. Rituals are performed in recognition that the leprosy has cleared up not for the sake of healing the person (Lev 14:3-4). The priest observes healing, but does not transmit it.

Why Bother with Purity?

So ritual purity either included or excluded you from the worship of the Lord, but why did the Israelites bother with all these arcane rules about white hairs and pustules? Specifically, why does the sanctuary exclude skin-diseased people? Skin diseases and certain other bodily conditions (like bleeding) were considered a corruption of the flesh, an invasion of death. The deterioration of the skin in particular looks like early-onset decomposition. If your body is starting to "decompose" then you can't come into the sanctuary of the God of the living. Bringing an admixture of death in your body into God's house is incompatible in principle.

Now, thank goodness, most ancient skin diseases can be treated and we don't have to wear rags and shout "Unclean!" if we wake up with dandruff one morning. But that does not mean that we have no need for purity. Several miracles in Jesus' ministry restored persons to a state of being ritually clean: the leper he heals in this Sunday's gospel (Mark 1:40-45) or the woman with a flow of blood (Mark 5:25). While skin diseases and other bodily problems do not exclude us from worshipping God, we can find spiritual significance in these Old Testament rules.

Our Need for Purity

Any person who had taken a step toward death could not worship the God of life. No one who carried death in his or her body was considered worthy. Likewise, when we carry around sin in our souls, we make ourselves unworthy of God's presence. St. Paul insists that if we receive unworthily we become "guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Cor 11:27), which is why the Church rules that we cannot receive Communion in a state of grave sin (Canon 916). But of course, if you do find yourself in a state of grave sin, always pay a visit to the confessional before receiving Communion. In addition, our need for purification (purgatory) before we see the face of God reveals that the ancient Israelites knew what they were talking about. We cannot come into God's presence in heaven stained with sin—sin is like a cancer or leprosy that spreads. It must be completely eradicated from us before we are "compatible" with God's presence. The Catechism teaches, "All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven" (sec. 1030).

by Joseph of Jesus and Mary

Gospel: Mark 1:40-45

40 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean."
41 Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!"
42 Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.
43 After sternly warning him he sent him away at once,
44 saying to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."
45 But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter. (NRSV)
- Mark 1:40-45

Inspiration of the Holy Spirit - From the Sacred Heart of Jesus

At the time of my healing ministry, lepers were despised and rejected because people feared to be contaminated by them, in fact, they were not allowed in public places.

This poor man suffering with leprosy risked his life in order to be cured. He knelt down before me with utter humility, he knew that I had the power to heal, and yet he did not ask me directly to heal him, he said to me, "If you want to, you can make me clean."

The faith of this leper, his courage, his determination and his need to be healed touched my heart. So being moved by compassion I stretched out my hand, touched him and said to him, “Of course I want to heal you, Be made clean.”

This can be a great lesson for all of you. The first thing that will impress me before I respond with a miracle is faith. It is by faith that I granted many miracles in my time, and I continue to grant them through faith, sometimes through the faith of one who prays for another and sometimes through the faith the one in need.

Without faith there is no response from me. In fact this is the reason why many prayers are not answered. To have faith is to believe beyond doubt that I am hearing your prayer, that I have the power to respond with a miracle and that I will do what you ask me.

But faith alone does not work. It must be combined with good works, and he who approaches the Most High must do so with humility. I do not listen to any request made with an unclean heart.

In good faith you must repent of your sins before you come into my presence. You must forgive your brothers from your heart, and you must be very humble before you come to me. Cain’s offering was rejected because of his lack of respect. Any pride in your soul will block my grace, remember this.

I am the immutable God, living in unapproachable light, I have made myself accessible through my humanity so that you could come close to me and benefit from my infinite goodness.

I am full of compassion and mercy, I do not reject anyone who comes to me with a humble and contrite heart. I am the same Jesus that you see in the Holy Scriptures, I have not stopped granting miracles.

by Gayle Somers

What can we learn today from a leper who kneels before Jesus in the hope of being healed?

Gospel (Read Mk 1:40-45)

We know from our reading of St. Mark's Gospel that as Jesus began His public ministry, He drew large crowds (see Mk 1:28, 33, 37). Today, we meet a leper who had apparently seen or heard enough about Jesus to make him take a bold action. Jewish law kept lepers away from the worshiping community, because the leprosy made them ritually unclean, unable to participate in the liturgical life of Israel. This can be difficult for us, in our day, to understand. In the Law of Moses, in order to teach the people about God's holiness—a lesson they desperately needed in order to be His chosen people—they had to learn in simple, obvious ways that God is Life Itself, pure goodness, perfect justice. Nothing associated with death (the result of man's disobedience) could enter His presence. That meant that blood, disease, or death (a corpse) made a man ritually unclean, keeping him away from worship. Ritual defilement always called for ritual purification. These exterior practices, given early in Israel's history, were meant to teach the people the difference between holiness and impurity, between righteousness (life) and sin (death). Ritual impurity, like a contagious disease, could be spread by contact from one person to another. Thus, lepers were required to live apart from the liturgical communion of Jews, and they were never to have physical contact with anyone who was ritually clean.

Knowing this, we can better appreciate the courage of this leper in our reading. What made him disregard the restrictions of Jewish law and drop down on his knees before Jesus? Was it the reputation Jesus had already earned as One who taught with authority, cast out demons, and cured the sick? The leper longed to be "clean." He wanted not just to be healed of a dreadful disease but also to be able to enter again the worship of God's people. He must have been convinced that Jesus could do this, and so he pressed forward.

Look at his request: "If You wish, You can make me clean." This one statement is a window into the leper's heart. Even though his need was great, he makes a request, not a demand. He longed to be clean, but he acknowledges that the prerogative lay entirely with Jesus. It is an amazingly humble posture. His terrible misfortune had not made him angry or bitter; it had not filled him with so much self-pity that he expected Jesus to make him clean. Such is the heart of a true Israelite.

See the impact of the leper and his words on Jesus. He was "moved with pity." Here is where we begin to understand the deepest meaning of this encounter. The "unclean" leper stands for sinful man (us, in other words), whose disobedience (the disease of sin) prevents him from communion with the holy God. The Law given to Moses identified and contained the sickness but was not able to heal it. Jesus can. The sinner has no "right" to this healing; he is utterly cast upon the mercy and grace of God. On his knees, in a posture of adoration, the sinner, too, must say, "If You wish, You can make me clean." What happens when we do this?

Jesus "stretched out His hand, touched him, and said to him, 'I do will it. Be made clean.'" Not only had the leper acted courageously in approaching Jesus, but our Lord did the unthinkable by stretching out His hand to touch the leper. Here was something new in Israel! The Law required holiness to be preserved by not coming into contact with impurity, because impurity was contagious. Now, however, the holiness of Jesus reaches out and itself becomes contagious. It conquers and heals the impurity. Why? Because God wills it. We can almost hear the delight in Jesus' words when He makes this clear. This is exactly what He came to do. As Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis has written, "Christ's fingers, which had so joyfully created man out of the clay of the earth, now exult as they receive admission into poor human flesh in need of regeneration" (Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, pg 324).

See the power of Jesus' touch and words: "the leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean." This episode is wonderfully iconic of what the Church teaches us about a sacrament. Here, again, we are helped by Leiva-Merikakis: "In Christ's action of healing as the visible sign of God's invisible grace and the leper's invisible faith, we have the perfect form of a sacrament. The physical gesture of Jesus' hand touching the man's body accompanied by the words, 'I want it; be healed!' God's intervention in the human scene becomes word that is saving act; man is to be invaded by the divine flood of life at every level of his being at once." (ibid., pg 326)

Jesus sends the leper to the priest to be re-admitted to the worshiping liturgical community (just as we are sent to our priests when our sin separate us from worship). He also warns the man not to spread the news of what happened. Why? Jesus knew He needed time to complete His preaching mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He did not want people to attempt to make him king prematurely, or for the wrong reason, nor did He want to arouse the suspicion of the authorities in Jerusalem. The leper couldn't contain himself (do we blame him?). As a result, "people kept coming to [Jesus] from everywhere."

What can we learn from the leper today? Not a bad question to ask ourselves.

Possible response: Lord Jesus, I learn from the leper that You are delighted, not disgusted, when I kneel before You to cure my sin.

Scripture: Lev 13:1-2, 44-46

Here we see a portion of the Law concerning leprosy. In reading it, we should be able to understand that the disease represents sin (why would it be a priest, not a doctor, who examines the leper?). The Law separated a leper as "unclean" and required him to live "outside the camp." This phrase appears again in the description of Israel's Day of Atonement. After animals had been slain as an offering for sin outside the Tabernacle (the tent of worship before the Temple in Jerusalem was built), the carcasses were dragged "outside the camp" to be burned (see Lev 16:27; Heb 13:11). In this we see again the removal of impurity away from the presence of God. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus, Who from eternity willed us to "be clean," was willing to become like a leper and suffer "outside the gate [the city] in order to sanctify [or make clean] the people through His own blood" (see Heb 13:12).

We always need to make the connection between physical disease as a representation of sin in Scripture. Jesus healed physical infirmity as a sign that He came to heal us of sin, a disease that corrodes our souls the way leprosy corrodes skin. The visible act of physical healing represented the invisible act of a cure for sin. It is good to remember that the apostles, after the Ascension and Pentecost, did not set up public health programs. They preached repentance and faith in the One willing to make His abode "outside the camp" in order to make us clean.

Possible response: Lord Jesus, thank You for coming "outside the camp" to find and rescue me.

Psalm (Read Ps 32:1-2, 5, 11)

Here is a song of praise from one who has experienced healing from the disease of sin: "Blessed is he whose fault is taken away, whose sin is covered." The psalmist describes doing with his sin what the leper did with his disease: "I acknowledged my sin to You, my guilt I covered not." Just as a sick man must expose his illness to a doctor for a cure, a sinner must confess his faults to the LORD in order to be forgiven and thus healed. Our responsorial gives us a refrain that describes what the leper did in his hour of need and what we do in ours: "I turn to you, LORD, in time of trouble, and You fill me with the joy of salvation."

Possible response: The psalm is, itself, a response to our other readings. Read it again prayerfully to make it your own.

Scripture: 1 Cor 10:31-11:1

St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians was filled with practical instruction about the many problems they experienced in their church. One of their biggest challenges was disunity. His advice was simple. It began with "do everything for the glory of God." The alternative to that, of course, is to do everything for ourselves and our own purposes, and that leads to fractures in the Christian community. Then he says, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ." St. Paul means that the Corinthians should follow his example of "not seeking my own benefit but that of the many." He thought of this as a summary of what Jesus did for us, to heal "the lepers" of our disease of sin: Jesus gave life for mine; now, I give my life for yours.

Are there "lepers" in our lives from whom we want to recoil and separate? Do we still think we can?