Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

February 10, 2021

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

February 14, 2021

Deacon Anthony J. Cincotta

Saint Mary Magdalen Parish, Media, PA

 

Book of Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46

Psalm 32

First Letter to the Corinthians 10:31-11:1

Mark 1:40-45

 

     Rejection, exclusion, alienation and being ostracized are terrible words to hear and even worse to experience.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, from which we read in today’s first reading, being a person who has a skin condition such as leprosy, must be cast out and avoided.

The Book of Leviticus has many such rules for the proper conduct of Moses’ followers.  Moses has the authority of God who declares this law as being necessary for the health of the rest of the camp.  Physical deformities or mental illness was interpreted as being a sign of sin or God’s displeasure.

I believe that it is within this sense of religious legalism that we hear Jesus in today’s Gospel narrative including, reaching towards and healing such an “unclean” man.  The man comes with a simple hope and faith, “If you wish, you can make me clean.”  Jesus actually touched the man and expressed the divine yes to all humankind’s uncleanness.  “I do will it.  Be made clean.”   This is figuratively and literally a quite touching picture and one each of us can enter easily.

Sisters and brothers, we are invited by today’s readings to present ourselves, not as dirty and rejectable, but as those who need a Jesus, a Savior, in our lives.  We have some muddy stains from our past and some feelings of being quite unclean and thereby deserve to be rejected, excluded and abandoned.  We need a Savior to save us from the hell of our own confinement.  Does Jesus still “will it?”  Do we have the desire to be un-excluded?

What we do best at times and especially during Holy Mass, is to allow Jesus to be Jesus; allow His grace to wash our space.  We can grow accustomed to our dirt which is different from our “earth” or humanness.  What we see and hear today is Jesus calling us to an honesty, which frees us from our ink-stain self that, like leprosy, can keep us from His communion and community.  All we have to remember is Jesus smiling and saying to each of us, “I do will it.”

Question of the Day:  Will you allow Jesus to make you clean through the Sacrament of Reconciliation?

Prayer:  My Lord and my God, You are my light and my strength.  Grant that your light will never cease to shine in me.  Amen.

Prosit