“I do will it, be made clean,” I mentioned this yesterday in my homily, and here we find it today in the Gospel. The leper then mars this beautiful moment by not following Jesus’ command not to tell anyone, and it hinders Jesus’s work in the community. But can you imagine the excitement this leper must have felt from being made whole again? From having this disease removed from his life and being restored to his family and friends? Here we have a man who has been ostracized freed from that which kept him from being able to be touched, to be caressed by those who love him, to be able to sit down and eat dinner with his family on holidays, and so forth. We cannot help but empathize with him; we too might want to run around telling people about this man Jesus and how this miraculous healing occurred.
The Pope said something interesting about this snippet of scripture a few years ago. He said:
Each time we approach the Sacrament of Reconciliation with a contrite heart, the Lord also repeats to us: “I will; be clean!”. How much joy there is in this! In this way, the leprosy of sin is overcome; we return to joyfully experience our filial relationship with God, and we are fully readmitted into the community. (Angelus, 11 February 2018)
That’s what the sacrament of confession is supposed to be like for us. Sin ostracizes us and breaks our relationship with God and with the community. Most of the time, we take a nonchalant attitude about it and even speak of confession like, “Oh goodness, guess I should get to confession.” As if it’s just another thing on this extensive list of “to-dos.” But it’s an encounter with Jesus; it’s a restoration of health, a freeing of the heart and mind to bring us back to the table with our loved ones, with our family both here on earth and in heaven.
Shouldn’t we too be delighted to talk about it with others? To share with them this miraculous moment in which Jesus Christ Himself says to us, through the ministry of the Church, “your sins are forgiven.” How is it that we keep silent about this Sacrament or talk of it as a monotony, a drudgery of religious life? If Jesus were here in this confessional curing COVID, the line would be out the door and up the street. But He is here doing something much more astounding, curing the darkness and sin entrenched in the human heart. How is it that we keep silent about it?
A reflection on the readings for Thursday of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time: January 13th, 2022