Friday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 25, 2021

Matthew 8:1-4

When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I will do it. Be made clean.” His leprosy was cleansed immediately. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one, but go show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.”

The verses of the Gospel reading for today’s Mass are set as though apart from the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, but they are in fact its conclusion.  The Lord has insisted that his teachings did not abolish the Law of God but instead fulfilled them, and he shows that this is so through the healing of this man, suffering from leprosy.  The power with which Jesus cures him, clearly divine, confirms his teaching, and his command for the man to go to the priests, as per the Law, shows the continuity of his teachings with the Law.  

The miracle itself sums up the work of salvation which the Lord came to perform.  We see him who has come down the mountain — the Son of God, now made man, who has come upon the earth.  A leper approaches — sinful man, recognizing that he can do nothing for himself, presents himself openly to the Lord.  The leper does him homage — sinful man acknowledges him as the Redeemer.  He says, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean” — sinful man confessing belief in the lord’s power and in his own need of it.  The Lord “stretched out his hand, touched him”, that is, he stretched out his arms on the Cross to redeem fallen man, and touches him with the grace of the Redemption he has won.  The Lord says (according to the Greek), “I will it. Be made clean.”  It is the will of the Lord to free all people of their sins.  The leprous man is healed immediately and completely, just as a person receiving Baptism is immediately and completely cleansed of all sin.  St. Matthew is careful to note that the healing is immediate.  In the Old Testament we read of a man being healed from leprosy, Naaman the Syrian, by the Prophet Elisha, but Naaman had to wash seven times in the Jordan River: his healing was not immediate.  The Lord shows the crowds that his power is greater even that of the revered Prophet.

We imitate the leprous man when we approach the Sacrament of Penance.  The Lord comes down to us in order to be near us and console us.  The leper in the Gospel would have kept the appropriate distance from the Lord, in accordance with the Law, and the Lord could have cured him without drawing any nearer, but not only did he come towards the man, but he touched him, a man whose body was ravaged with the terrible, inflamed sores of the disease which resulted in a vile odor.  We are touched by the merciful and loving hand of the Lord Jesus when we confess our sins with true sorrow and purpose of amendment.  And when the Lord, through the priest, speaks the words of the Act of Absolution, we are free.  Our souls soften and are made whole.  Sensation fills them again.  Grace flows within them again.  We know in the moment of our healing that it is God who has done it.  The leper, once healed, does not return to the wretched places where he lived in his sickness.  He goes to live among his family again.  So should we steer ourselves far from the occasions of our former sins, for what can be there that is better than the health we now enjoy?