A Reflection for Friday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
Find today’s readings here.
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.” (Mt 8:1-4)
When I read this, it got me thinking about leprosy. What really is leprosy? It’s been cured, right? Because it seems like it was a big deal in the past, but not something that’s been so threatening recently. Sort of like tuberculosis. And we all (at least I do) pretend we have basic knowledge of these diseases.
So I looked into it. The Leprosy Mission International proved me wrong. Immediately I was hit with: “Many people across the world believe leprosy died out centuries ago, but this is not true.” But it turns out that leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, is curable and doesn’t leave a person with long-term side effects if treated quickly. It manifests as skin patches, ulcers, lesions and muscle weakness or paralysis. If not treated, leprosy damages the nerves of the body, causing subsequent disabilities and health problems.
This Gospel reading sparked my curiosity about leprosy, but led me back to the teachings of St. Ignatius.
There isn’t a lot of context given in the Bible to the leper whom Jesus cured. We don’t even know his name. We don’t know how long he suffered from the disease. Back then they didn’t have the knowledge we do know, or the ability to Google “what is leprosy?” Leprosy was taboo, simply seen as an unclean disease. People saw the physical symptoms and were afraid. We read the story of the leper now and think of it as something removed from our current lives.
If leprosy exists, why haven’t I ever heard about anyone contracting it? The thing about diseases like leprosy, that people think have been cured, and that are curable if treated immediately—but still harm and disable millions of people—is that the places they still exist and proliferate seem removed from us. The largest concentrations of leprosy in the world today are in low-income, remote parts of Africa and Asia.
This Gospel reading sparked my curiosity about leprosy, but led me back to the teachings of St. Ignatius. We are called to focus in particular on the poor and marginalized in our society. At first, I thought of the story of Jesus cleansing the leper as simply a metaphor for how you can act like him in your daily life. But if we broaden our awareness of the world, we learn that there are still fixable problems (like leprosy) that exist because certain people don’t have the resources to treat treatable diseases.
There are saints I have heard of, such as St. Marianne Cope, known as the “mother of lepers,” who worked with people living with leprosy in the past—which is very important, but which fed my belief that leprosy no longer existed. It turns out I still had (and still have) a lot to learn. While I cannot touch a person with leprosy and make them clean as Jesus did, there are real efforts we can make to remedy the fixable problems in the world.
