SOMETHING INSIDE
Our human
experiences - our longings, desires, and hopes - are the most important things
inside each of us and God sees and knows them all.
In today's
Responsorial Psalm we acclaim, "If today you hear His voice, harden not
your hearts" (Ps 95:8). God is our heavenly Father and we are His
children, whom He shepherds and guides. May we accept and believe that we
belong to Him so that we can grow in union with Him, trust Him, and put our
whole life into His hands with great confidence and peace.
Today's Gospel
story of the healing of a leper expresses the simple dialogue between the leper
and Jesus that preceded the act of healing. It shows that this was a true
Covenant story; a Covenant act: "If You wish, You can make me clean."
Jesus replied, "I do will it. Be made clean". The story is related as
an encounter between God and the people. Here stands Jesus Christ, Who possesses
healing power and is moved with pity for the leper. Here is a man who kneels in
front of Jesus, suffering great in body and spirit, and who is considered to be
a social outcast. Jesus emphasizes the human experience of healing and
compassion. He goes right to the heart of the matter!
I would like to end
our reflection today with this quote from Paul Horgan's historical novel A
Distant Trumpet:
"A man is more, much more, than bone and blood and meat. Blood and
meat we treat alike when we fight in battle, and we give our orders to them,
and every man is as useful or not as his neighbor. But when he is hurt or dying
or recovering, or longing for whatever it is he longs for, then - then there is
something inside him that shows, in ways you cannot put your finger on, and it
is the most true thing about him, and the most important."
Our human
experiences - our longings, desires, and hopes - are the most important things
inside each of us and God sees and knows them all.
He is a loving
Shepherd!