We continue to reflect on illness and what it means in terms of today’s world, languishing under the weight of so many ills. Everywhere we turn there is social unrest; people struggling to make ends meet; violence and greed on the rise, the growing discrepancies between rich and poor. The leper in today’s Gospel is perhaps an image of what we ourselves – the world community – have become: covered with sores, longing to be rehabilitated.

On the other hand, in the Gospels we see Jesus constantly curing the sick, giving sight to the blind, casting out devils, bringing peace. Those with any ailments whatever flocked to him for healing. Sickness is not from God, Jesus tells us. God’s glory is [man] fully alive. It is for this that I have come – to bring us the fullness of life, and joy, and happiness. Our God is a living God, not a God of the dead, not a God of sickness. He wants to do the same for us.

Our poor world is not beyond repair. We need only come to Jesus. Once we admit our weakness and sinfulness, once we open ourselves to receive God’s grace, grace will be ours, in abundance, overflowing.  “I do will it,” Jesus tells us. “Be made clean.”