Daily reflection _ something inside


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.   
Deacon John Ruscheinsky
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!