20150109
A Leper's Healing and Vocation
Mass
Readings
1John5
: 5-13
5 Who
can overcome the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
6 He it
is who came by water and blood, Jesus
Christ, not with water alone but with water and blood, and it is the Spirit
that bears witness, for the Spirit
is Truth.
7 So
there are three witnesses,
8 the Spirit,
water and blood; and the three of them coincide.
9 If we
accept the testimony of human witnesses, God's testimony is greater, for this
is God's testimony which he gave about his Son.
10
Whoever believes in the Son of God
has this testimony within him, and whoever does not believe is making God a
liar, because he has not believed the testimony God
has given about his Son.
12
Whoever has the Son has life, and whoever has not the Son of God
has not life.
13 I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son
of God
so that you may know that you have eternal life.
Gospel Luke 5:12-16
12 Now
it happened that Jesus
was in one of the towns when suddenly a man
appeared, covered with a skin-disease. Seeing Jesus he fell on his face
and implored him saying, 'Sir, if you are willing you can cleanse me.'
13 He
stretched out his hand, and touched him saying, 'I am willing. Be cleansed.' At
once the skin-disease left him.
14 He
ordered him to tell no one, 'But go and show yourself to the priest
and make the offering for your cleansing just as Moses
prescribed, as evidence to them.'
15 But the news of him kept spreading, and large crowds would
gather to hear him and to have their illnesses cured,
16 but he would go off to some deserted place and pray.
Reflection
When I
was a seminarian I was asked to respond to a letter from a missionary. In the
letter the priest spoke of his work with lepers. Although I answered the letter
we did not correspond further, but I remember my hand breaking out in a rash
the day after reading his letter. I was a bit concerned and wondered if leprosy
was contagious. I suspect this was an unconscious, physical voice yelling at
me, probably setting boundaries that would influence the direction of future
ministry choices I would make.
Today
is the feast of St. Damien of Molokai. Damien, priest and later leper, who
ministered to poor lepers on that Hawaiian island. The gospel on this memorial
fits nicely, as Jesus heals a leper.
In this
part of Luke's gospel there are two stories of Jesus power - healing the
leaper, and healing and forgiving a paralyzed man. There are also two responses
to Jesus' power: people seek to listen to Jesus, and Pharisees, who sit as
judges observing Jesus, reject his works. At the end of these two stories Jesus
will call the twelve apostles, confirming them in their vocations.
I
wonder about the vocation St. Damien de Veuster who died at the age of 59. What
a jolt it must have been for him to be live in a lush, beautiful world where
people arrived as if coming to a penal colony to live their days until death. I
see his face in the familiar photo, black cassock large brimmed black hat,
looking at us through wire framed glasses, his bulbous nose quite prominent.
I don't
know of Damien curing any of those whom he cared for. Life went on among the
lepers as it does among us, need for daily food, social relationships,
celebration of the sacraments and strengthening faith, their mutual care and
support. As he lived his vocation did he feel the choice of responding like the
people in the gospel? Did he listen to the voice of God in the events and
people who surrounded him, in his prayer and Scriptures? Was he also tempted to
sit in judgement like the Pharisees and see nothing good in God's works except
hopeless diminishment?
Where
did Damien get such a vocation? Did he grow into it little by little? Was he
not afraid of contagion? It is said that he stood before his community one day
and announced that he was one of them, he was a leper. He must have always felt
a gulf between those to whom he ministered and himself when he was a non-leper,
and then one day that gulf was no longer part of his existence. Our gospel
today may be more connected with vocation than at first seems apparent.
The
people were catching on to Jesus, listening, taking him in. When our vocations
call out to us they are invitations to a love that gives meaning to our life.
Love is heard, and it invites us to an ongoing romance as strange, wild and
indescribable as any can be. Damien responded to that love and we see where it
led him. Remarkable. If we sit and judge we can find reasons to say, ‘no
thanks'. But in the ‘yes' the gulf disappears, we know we are one with God, and
one with those to whom we bring God's love.
Fr. William Murphy, CP is the pastor of Immaculate Conception
parish in Jamaica, New York.
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