6th Sunday B
Am I clean or unclean?
(A homily by Fr. Alphonse Gollapalli)
In ancient times, there was no scientific diagnosis of leprosy, and many other curable skin diseases were included in this designation. These diseases were considered dangerous and detestable not only because they were contagious but also because they made a person religiously unclean and unworthy to take part in community worship. In the Old Testament, diseases were thought to have been caused by sin. The sick people had to present themselves to the priest who decided how long they had to stay in quarantine.
Over the centuries, leprosy, for which no cure existed until recently, was a reason to ostracize one’s fellow humans. Mostly in the developing countries, there are still thousands of lepers considered as unclean, contagious, and dangerous, who live in leper colonies, often in utter misery and filth.
For one reason or another society expels members from its midst. Reasons may be crime, disease, inability to live up to community standards, or simply discrimination based on prejudice. Society confines outcasts to prison, isolates them in quarantine, or just ignores them. In any case, outcasts are unhappy persons. They feel unwanted and often turn to bitterness and hatred.
A few years ago when HIV/AIDS was rampant in the third world countries, I have learnt, that their families and governments left the victims aloneto suffer and die in isolation. Same thing happened when Ebola virus created havoc in the African countries. Even an ordinary flu these days threatens social life of people.
It is always good to practice healthy measures when there is risk of contracting diseases. But I would like to point to what Jesus said in Mk 7/14-23. He said, “Hear me all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him: but the things which come out of a man are what defile him… For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride foolishness. All these evil things come from within and they defile a man.”
In the Gospel Jesus reverses this ordinary human attitude towards the outcasts. He touches the leper and makes him clean. In the ordinary case, when the healthy person touches the unclean, he becomes unclean and contracts the disease. Jesus by touching the leper does not become unclean instead his healing grace is passed on to the sick person and heals.
When a person is sick through an illness or has spiritual illness through sin, Jesus offers through his church, two sacraments that heal him. The Sacrament of Reconciliation offers forgiveness of sins and the Sacrament of the Anointing of the sick offers physical healing. Jesus touches in the depth of the heart of the person in confession while he touches the body of the sick person in the anointing of the sick. Everyone who is unclean through sin and sickness should approach Jesus, fall on knees and beg saying, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” And the Lord certainly will stretch his hand and say, “I do will it. Be made clean.”
Our point for meditation is not to look around to find who is unclean in our community. But rather each of us should look into ourselves and say, “Am I clean or unclean?”