Leper and the creative Touch, which reintegrates him

(Mt 8:1-4)

We ask: how did Jesus practise the Law? His transgressive Touch sums up his life and outcome, teaching and mission.

The outcasts came close to Christ, who did not turn anyone away - openly contravening the rule of the Torah (Lev 13) which required the unclean to be cast out.

For every rejectionist from the circle of hypocritical legalists there is only one way out, always: to be healed by God himself. And to invent a way around the law [even devout law] in order to have a personal relationship - without prior conditions of purity.

One is not saved alone: immaculacy can only be given. But often even those who are called to help refuse to take care of it - locking the very needy into absurd loneliness.

For the Lord, religious exclusivism is a squalid invention of opportunistic potentates and deviant leaders, who distort the face of God to subjugate consciences.

The Father welcomes all as sons; Jesus as friends - and He does so by violating [also] certain provisions.

Thus the man of Faith embraces sisters and brothers, excluding the precautionary scrutiny of upstream conditions, moralistic or sacred judgements, and mentalities.

But in that culture it was only the certificate of health issued by the priests (v.4) that meant: 'now you can live readmitted to society'.

In the composition of the pericope, the evangelist means: it is the encounter with Christ that heals and becomes the free pass even to be accepted in the community - not the precautions, nor the rigmarole of the disciplines of the arcane [always directed by those who consider themselves healthy and uninfected].

One does not have to be already perfect and certified to be admitted or reintegrated, and attend church as 'unwelcome'.

The Saviour resents marginalisations or exclusive realities, through which we would never recover the original innocence that they promise.

Instead, it is the Gratis of Jesus that makes one exist unconditionally, with normality and fullness.

He himself obliges the authorities to recognise the fact that we are pure, complete (to live our vocation) and healed; fully enabled to be with others and not to be sent away.

The Message was indeed strange to conventional ideas, but it spread, arousing enthusiasm precisely among those removed from the 'centre' [cf. parallel Mk 1:45]: God has no repugnance.

And where the arrangements on the ground were contrary to his humanising project, something had to be invented - just to have a personal relationship, an encounter, a minimum of face-to-face contact.

Not infrequently (unfortunately) without the nerve to transgress the religious precept, the initiative of love that renews the face of the earth cannot be triggered, and death returns to seize us, annihilating every yearning for life.

It seems a paradox, but sometimes one does not get back on one's feet otherwise than by circumventing the obstacles of certain provisions, with extreme courage and at the risk of further marginalisation.

We see this in the Son who lifts us up, a counter-violator of exclusive formal procedures: an 'eccentric divine' who has the power to overcome the most lacerating evil: that which corrodes within and excludes.

Today too, the Spirit of restoration bursts into our reality, breaking through the hard tables of stone on the outside, in order to break through - and finally occupy the centre of our path.

"The Gospel shows us Jesus coming into contact with the form of disease considered in those days the most serious, so much so as to render the person "unclean" and exclude him from social relations: we speak of leprosy. A special legislation (cf. Lev 13-14) reserved to the priests the task of declaring the person leprous, that is, impure; and equally it was up to the priest to ascertain the cure and readmit the healed sick person to normal life.

While Jesus was preaching in the villages of Galilee, a leper came to him and said: "If you want, you can cleanse me!". Jesus did not escape contact with that man, indeed, moved by intimate participation in his condition, he reached out his hand and touched him - overriding the legal prohibition - and said to him: "I will, be cleansed!" In that gesture and in those words of Christ there is the whole history of salvation, there is embodied the will of God to heal us, to purify us from the evil that disfigures us and ruins our relationships. In that contact between the hand of Jesus and the leper, every barrier is broken down between God and human impurity, between the Sacred and its opposite, certainly not to deny evil and its negative force, but to show that God's love is stronger than all evil, even the most contagious and horrible. Jesus took our infirmities upon himself, he became a 'leper' so that we might be cleansed.A splendid existential commentary on this Gospel is the famous experience of St Francis of Assisi, which he summarises at the beginning of his Testament: "The Lord gave me, Brother Francis, to begin to do penance in this way: when I was in sin, it seemed too bitter for me to see lepers; and the Lord himself led me among them and I showed them mercy. And as I departed from them, what seemed bitter to me was changed to sweetness of mind and body. And then I stayed a little while and went out of the world" (FF, 110). In those lepers, whom Francis met when he was still "in sin," as he says, Jesus was present; and when Francis approached one of them and, overcoming his own disgust, embraced him, Jesus healed him of his leprosy, that is, of his pride, and converted him to the love of God. Here is the victory of Christ, which is our deep healing and our resurrection to new life!"

[Pope Benedict, Angelus of 12 February 2012].

To internalise and live the message:

In your spiritual story, what wins? The Touch of Christ or that of circumstances, mannerisms, chain of command?

What kind is your Touch? Sanitising or clenched fist? Do you know how to place people in their Centre, and thereby make them feel adequate?

The Leper and the Touch

(Mk 1:40-45)

"He who proclaims makes his own the desire of God, who pines for those who are distant. He knows no enemies, only fellow travellers. He does not stand as a master, he knows that the search for God is common and must be shared, that the closeness of Jesus is never denied to anyone" [Pope Francis].

The nameless leper represents us. And the Touch of Jesus sums up his life, teaching and mission.

It manifests itself especially when the environment marginalises the uniqueness of the soul, and a part of us seems impatient, wants the new.

Certain established aspects no longer belong to us. Such moral certainty in the soul is a precious spy, not to be silenced.

In the restless, ill-judged person there is often an external - conditioned - aversion and an intuitive, internal one too.

We are not appeased by the artificial lifestyle we lead, almost forced - nor by the very idea of us.

So we ask: is there any therapy to the mechanisms that do not belong to us, and to those that we instinctively consider in our character, outdated?

Yes, because discomfort can become knowledge: it is a primordial language that can guide us towards change.

Disaffection and the perception of estrangement give rise to new awareness.

Discontent generates shock, dreams of expectation, hence the now unpostponable Exodus.

Where to look for trust and support, to overcome automatisms?

In the Living One Himself, who is all off the rails, and is not afraid to defile Himself - not even with an individual covered in disease and cracks ["leper": v.40].

No one with 'leprosy' or skin disease could approach anyone - least of all a man of God - but Mc wants to emphasise that it is the customary way of understanding religion [and one's 'place'] that makes one unclean.

Legalistic norms marginalise people and guilt them, make them feel dirty inside - inculcating that sense of unworthiness that negatively affects their evolution.

Of course, made transparent in God, we all catch ourselves full of evil. But this must not mark our history, because of fallibility; with a cloak of insuperable identifications.

In this way, perception does not disintegrate into torment. On the contrary, relentlessly shifting gaze presents horizons, suggests paths, triggers even transgressive reactions - at least from the point of view of intransigent indictments, all far removed from real life.

We are challenged even by the banality of concatenations, but our today and tomorrow may not result from our yesterday [a tissue of whatever, predictable condemnations].

In Christ, poverty becomes more than a hope (vv.40-42). So, beware of models!

One does not have to be 'worldly and precise' to have 'then' the right to present oneself to God: his Love is symptomatic and engaging, because it does not wait for the other's perfections first.

The Source of the Free transforms and makes it transparent: it does not modulate generosity on the basis of merits - on the contrary, of needs.

The archaistic religious directive accentuated exclusions - thus chastising the infirm to solitude, to social marginalisation.

The leper had to live apart. But having understood that only the Person of the Lord could make him 'pure', he set aside the Law that had chastised him for vacuous prejudices.

Mk means: do not be afraid to denounce by your own initiative that certain customs are contrary to God's plan.

As a matter of fact, there is no way to get close to Christ (i.e. to have a personal relationship) without each of us inventing a chance that dribbles the usual people around Him - and absolutely does not follow their mentality.The devout or sophisticated environment will try to curb any individual eccentricity.

But in our relationship with God and to realise life, it is decisive that we remain lovers of direct communication.

In every condition we are in eccentric dialogue with the regenerative and superior Source; passionate about the experience of love, which does not exist without freedom.

To help the precarious brother on whom the sentence of impurity hangs - "neighbour" seen as inappellably defiled - even the Son transgresses the religious prescription!

In order to remain undefiled, the sacred precept required to be on guard against lepers - afflicted with an evil that corrodes within, the very image of sin.

That unscrupulous gesture also imposes on us overly considerate people the practice of risk, of demystification.

Indeed, by rule of religion the Lord himself with his Touch becomes a polluted person to be healed and kept at a distance (v.45) - disenfranchised.

However, by reinterpreting the prescriptions of the beginning (v.44) Jesus reveals the face of the Father: he wants each of us to be able to live with others and be accepted, not segregated.

He is saying to his own, who already showed strange tendencies in the first communities: you are obliged to welcome in everything even the misfits, outcasts and wretches, and let them take an active part in the liturgies, the meetings, the joy of the feasts.

The Risen One (v.45) continues to suggest to us, challenging public opinion:

"The certificate of healing I will provide, to the people you make feel guilty. My church leaders are not to endorse, but only to note that I have absorbed the fault of the missing - indeed, it will become astonishment in me'.

A truly lovely proposal, free of forcings and dissociations.

In the attitude of an inverted spirituality - neither selective nor empty - here we are driven to the enthusiastic proclamation of the concrete experience each person has with the person of Christ.

This even if at first it may be lacking, because He does not like to be considered a triumphant king of this world (v.44a).

Beautiful, however, is this subversion: that which unites divine and human traits in an incomparable way.

For each, without hysterical tares.

Subversion that offers us God's purity and entrusts our uncertainty to Him: indeed, the only "scandalous" subversion that brings together many crowds "from all sides" (v.45).

Indeed, the Tao Tê Ching (LXIII) says:

"He plans the difficult in his easy, he works the great in his small: the most difficult undertakings under heaven certainly begin in the small. That is why the saint does not work the great, and thus can complete his greatness'.

This is natural Wisdom, which conveys self-confidence, and will amaze us with flourishes. Complicity of a God who is finally not unpleasant.

Eternal One who makes Himself Present in the very foundation and meaning of the divine-human place on earth, His Vineyard of inapparent.

Thus he can break down the barriers of 'religious' defects, and make everyone feel adequate.

To internalise and live the message:

How do you challenge the public opinion of your time, to foster the practice of equality, freedom, convivial love?

Have you ever marvelled at your shadow sides, which have become precious pearls, of unprecedented value?

Have you encountered passionate guides, who taught you to love your religious flaws?

Ritual purity is completely incidental

The evangelical proclamation of "beatitude", of happiness, retains and increases its full validity today, when Catholics and all men of good will throughout the world are invited to express their solidarity with their leprous brethren with a concrete and active gesture.

Leprosy! The very name, even today, inspires in everyone a sense of dismay and horror. We know from history that this feeling was strongly perceived among the ancients, particularly among the peoples of the East, where, for climatic and hygienic reasons, this disease was very much felt. In the Old Testament (cf. Lev 13-14) we find detailed and minute case histories and legislation for those afflicted by the disease: ancestral fears, the widespread conception of fatality, incurability and contagion, forced the Jewish people to use appropriate preventive measures, through the isolation of the leper, who, considered in a state of ritual impurity, found himself physically and psychologically marginalised and excluded from the family, social and religious events of the chosen people. Moreover, leprosy was a mark of condemnation, as the disease was considered a punishment from God. All that remained was the hope that the power of the Most High would heal the afflicted.

Jesus, in his mission of salvation, often encountered lepers, these beings disfigured in form, deprived of the reflection of the image of the glory of God in the physical integrity of the human body, authentic wrecks and refuse of the society of the time.Jesus' encounter with lepers is the type and model of his encounter with every man, who is healed and brought back to the perfection of the original divine image and readmitted to the communion of God's people. In these encounters Jesus manifested himself as the bearer of new life, of a fullness of humanity long lost. Mosaic legislation excluded, condemned the leper, forbade approaching him, speaking to him, touching him. Jesus, instead, shows himself, first of all, sovereignly free with respect to the ancient law: he approaches, speaks to, touches, and even heals the leper, heals him, restores his flesh to the freshness of that of a child. "Then there came to him a leper," we read in Mark, "begging him on his knees and saying to him, "If you want, you can heal me! Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said, "I will, heal him!" Immediately the leprosy disappeared and he was healed" (Mark 1:40-42; cf. Matth. 8:2-4; Luc. 5:12-15). The same will happen to ten other lepers (cf. Luc. 17: 12-19). "The lepers are healed!", this is the sign Jesus gives for his messianicity to the disciples of John the Baptist, who have come to question him (Matth. 11, 5). And to his disciples Jesus entrusts his own mission: "Preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. ., heal the lepers" (Matth. 10: 7 ff.). He also solemnly affirmed that ritual purity is completely ancillary, that the truly important and decisive one for salvation is moral purity, that of the heart, of the will, which has nothing to do with the stains of the skin or of the person (Ibid. 15, 10-20).

But the loving gesture of Christ, who approached the lepers, comforting and healing them, has its full and mysterious expression in the Passion, in which he, tortured and disfigured by the sweat of blood, the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the crucifixion, the exclusionary rejection of the people already benefited, comes to identify himself with the lepers, becomes the image and symbol of them, as the prophet Isaiah had intuited when contemplating the mystery of the Servant of Yahweh: "He has no appearance or beauty.. despised and rejected by men . . like one before whom one covers one's face, ... and we judged him chastened, beaten by God and humiliated" (Is. 53:2-4). But it is precisely from the wounds of Jesus' mangled body and the power of his resurrection, that life and hope spring forth for all men affected by evil and infirmity.

The Church has always been faithful to the mission of proclaiming the Word of Christ, combined with the concrete gesture of solidarity and mercy towards the least. Over the centuries, there has been an overwhelming and extraordinary crescendo of dedication to those afflicted by the most humanly repugnant diseases, and in particular leprosy, whose gloomy presence continued to persist in the eastern and western worlds. History makes it clear that it was the Christians who first became interested and concerned about the problem of lepers. Christ's example had set a school and was fruitful in solidarity, dedication, generosity, and selfless charity.

In the history of Christian hagiography, the episode concerning Francis of Assisi has remained emblematic: he was young, like you; like you he sought joy, happiness, glory; yet he wanted to give total and definitive meaning to his own existence. Among all the horrors of human misery, Francis felt an instinctive repugnance for lepers. But lo and behold, one day he encountered one, while on horseback near Assisi. He felt great revulsion, but, not to fail in his commitment to become a 'knight of Christ', he leapt from the saddle and, as the leper extended his hand to receive alms, Francis handed him money and kissed him (Cf. TOMMASO DA CELANO, Vita seconda di San Francesco d'Assisi, I, V: "Fonti Francescane", I, p. 561, Assisi 1977; S. BONAVENTURA DA BAGNOREGIO, Leggenda maggiore, I, 5: ed. cit, p. 842).

The great expansion of the Missions in modern times has given new impetus to the movement in favour of the leprosy brothers. In all regions of the world the Missionaries have encountered these sick, abandoned, rejected, victims of social and legal disqualifications and discrimination, which degrade man and violate the fundamental rights of the human person. The missionaries, out of love for Christ, have always proclaimed the Gospel even to lepers, they have tried by all means to help them, to cure them with all the possibilities that medicine, often primitive, could offer, but especially they have loved them, freeing them from loneliness and incomprehension and sometimes sharing their lives fully, because they saw in the disfigured body of their brother the image of the suffering Christ. We wish to recall the heroic figure of Father Damien de Veuster, who spontaneously chose and asked his Superiors to be segregated among the lepers of Molokai, to remain with them and to communicate to them the hope of the Gospel, and finally, stricken by the disease, shared the fate of his brothers until his death.

But with him we wish to remember and present to the admiration and example of the world the thousands of missionaries, priests, religious men and women, lay people, catechists, doctors, who have wanted to be friends of the lepers, and whose edifying and exemplary generosity is today a comfort and a spur to us, to continue the human and Christian "fight against leprosy and all leprosy", which is rampant in contemporary society, such as hunger, discrimination, underdevelopment.

[Pope Paul VI, Homily XXV World Leprosy Day 29 January 1978].