"If you want to, you can"
You should show kindness not in the easiest, but in the
most loving way possible.
It was for your
instruction that divine Wisdom, our Medicine and our Doctrine, chose to heal
the leper by touching him, though a word would have sufficed. You should show
kindness not in the easiest, but in the most loving way possible. There must be
no shrinking back; keeping Christ ever-present in intention you must prove
yourself fully compassionate. After all, Christ, no matter what the person,
place, or work, is ever beautiful, pure, noble, and worthy.
His words, you
remember, were: "It is my will; be you made clean." What business
have we, brothers, discussing those who are more able than willing to do good
when every day I must listen to your complaints and groans and sighs? I mean
your groans that you are unable to achieve, no matter how much you will it, all
that you desire, in either rising to the Father and the one thing necessary, or
in descending to the manifold business of helping a brother.
"If it be your
will," said the leper, "you have power to make me clean." Such
is the power at his free disposal, dear friends, that everything is possible to
the Almighty; this does not mean that he always wills all that he is able to
do. He is able to do much that he has no intention of doing and will never be
able to do in spite of himself. When confessing one's sins one need have no
doubt whatever of God's power; and yet, since he who can do all whatsoever he
wills does not will to do all that he can, one rightly implores his favour and
adores his power. In God we must consider both will and power. His willingness
to heal the leper because he is able to - "it is my will; be you made
clean", understood as implying "because you say I am able to" -
teaches us not to shy away from whatever good deeds are in our power. Rather,
we should as the Apostle says: "Practise generosity to all, while the
opportunity is ours without discouragement; we shall reap when the time
comes."