GOSPEL POWER | FEBRUARY 14, 2021

SUNDAY | 6TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Gospel: MK 1: 40 – 45

A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 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.” 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.

REFLECTION

Jesus responds to the leper’s plea not only by expressing a wish for the man’s cleansing, as he is expected to do. Rather, he crosses the religious and social boundaries separating the clean from the unclean. By extending his hand to touch the untouchable, Jesus signifies that such discriminatory boundaries are now void. For in his person, the Kingdom of heaven has broken through the boundaries that set it apart from the earthly sphere. In Jesus Christ, the divine and the human have come together in an inseparable union. He himself is the principle of reconciliation of opposites. In him, Jews and Gentiles, sinners and saints are all children of the same compassionate Father who wills to save them all.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus, in you and with you, may we also rise above all forms of discrimination that block us from building together a better world. Amen.