Sixth Week of Ordinary Time-B
Christianity is a lifelong commitment. Once baptized, an individual, whether consciously or unconsciously, dedicate their life to the teachings of Jesus and live them out the best they can. Holy people exemplify entirely the way of life Jesus taught. Meanwhile, for others, life’s situation dictates how closely they follow Jesus’ example. Most people fall into this category. Then, some who care more about their earthly lives than the eternal might lose their faith altogether.
Christianity demands a balance between the physical bodies we share with all other creatures and the eternal soul that sets us apart from them. Only human beings have substantial unity between the two. To live as a Christian means having a proverbial foot in both the temporal and eternal. The degree to which we emphasize either the temporal or eternal directly correlates with whether we are holy or one who has lost faith.
The Gospel for this Sunday comes again from St. Mark and continues to record how Jesus healed those he encountered. Last week, it was Simon’s mother, and today, it is a man suffering from leprosy. The afflicted man kneeling before Jesus implored him, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Jesus moved with pity for the man, touched him, and responded, “I do will it. Be made clean.” At that moment, the man was free from his leprosy.
During the time of Jesus and long before, the condition of leprosy relegated the individual to a horrible life. Seen as unclean, they were ostracized from the community due in part to keeping the person quarantined so as not to infect the rest of the population. They were also considered sinful because the ancient thought that illness was a result of sin. That is why one with leprosy had to be examined by the priests who determined whether he could be part of the community or not.
The Book of Leviticus is the law a priest had to follow in his sentencing, “As long as the sore is on him he shall declare himself unclean, since in fact, he is unclean. He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.” In other words, the illness automatically made the infected person homeless and without the assistance of a community. An infected beggar he became.
It’s no wonder the leper pleaded for a chance to be made whole and how Jesus pitied this poor soul, curing him as he asked. However, the story doesn’t end there. Jesus instructed the man cured of his leprosy to go to the priests so he could regain his position again in the community of God’s people.
St. Mark also indicates that Jesus warned the healed man sternly, “See that you tell no one anything.” It has been customary to interpret Jesus’ warning as not to misinterpret his mission as a figure sent to the world to be only a healer of the body instead of the redeemer of humanity. The validity of this understanding is without question. However, it doesn’t have to be the only explanation.
Contrary to Jesus’s explicit instruction, the leper did the exact opposite, “The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.” Understandably, the man was ecstatic that his life was free of disease and wanted to share the news with everyone around. We probably would be tempted to do the same. But why would he disobey Jesus, who sternly warned him not to?
Either the man didn’t care what Jesus wanted after he was cured or was so steeped in his temporal existence that he had little concern about anything else. After all, the cured man could resume his everyday life before leprosy interrupted it. Similarly, we may fall into the trap of asking Jesus to heal us so we can return to a life we had before we were stricken with disease. Our healed condition will only last so long if our prayer is answered. We will be subjected to our death sometime in the future.
Besides healing, we may ask God for many things through our prayers. Our experience has shown that some of these prayers seem to be answered while others do not. The experience I speak of is when we observe a prayer answered or not from a completely temporal perspective. When we are committed to a lifelong journey in Christianity, we know all our prayers are answered.
The lifelong Christian believes his prayers are answered because he knows his life is a continuum between our earthly and heavenly lives. When we keep both states of life placed in proper balance, faith informs us that God will do everything we ask to bring us closer to him. What may be better for us might be the healing of a disease, or maybe God wills us to become better persons through our suffering, united with Christ. Authentic faith always bows to God’s will.