We Lepers

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Leprosy? Most of us have never seen anyone with this debilitating disease. Leprosy seems to have been stamped out in our country and any trace of the colonies, where lepers were hold up, to isolate them from the rest of us healthy folks have been lost to development. But both scripture and the Church’s history refuse to let us forget. The story of St Damien of Molokai, Apostle to the Lepers, must certainly be one of the most inspired hagiographies ever written and one which reminds us of the “lepers” that continue to live among us, though often out of sight.

In 1866, to curb the spread of this virulent disease of leprosy, the Hawaiian authorities decided to consign lepers to an isolated community on the island of Molokai. Once the lepers were out of sight and no longer a threat to the general population, the government turned a blind eye to their basic needs. Where even other missionaries kept away, St Damien, a missionary priest, pleaded with the bishop of the territory to allow him to minister to the needs of these lepers. The bishop kindly accompanied Damien to the colony and introduced him to the 816 community members as “one who will be a father to you and who loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you, to live and die with you”. Little did the bishop realise that his words would prove prophetic.

Damien’s superiors had given him strict advice: “Do not touch them. Do not allow them to touch you. Do not eat with them.” But Damien made the decision to transcend his fear of contagion and enter into solidarity with the Molokai lepers. Other missionaries and doctors shrank from the lepers. What surprised the lepers most was that Damien touched them. But Damien not only touched the lepers, he also embraced them, he dined with them, he put his thumb on their forehead to anoint them, and he placed the Eucharist on their tongues.

One day, while soaking his feet in extremely hot water, Damien experienced no sensation of heat or pain—a tell-tale sign that he had contracted leprosy. The disease quickly developed, causing Damien to write to his bishop with the news. Damian who had not hesitated to become one of the lepers, chose also to live and die with them.

If you find that story amazingly moving, then you should feel the same if not more for what the Lord has done for us. Our Lord approaches a leper in today’s gospel and touches him.

To truly understand the significance of our Lord’s action, we need to understand two important concepts in the mind of a Jew– leprosy and the laws of ritual purity. The idea of leprosy was more than a virulent disease to be avoided. For the Jews, it was a sacrament in reverse - outward sign of inward curse. It was a sign of separation from God. For this reason, both the diagnosis as well as the final assessment that it had been cured, was not left to any ordinary doctor. Since, leprosy was seen as the ultimate punishment from God, only a priest, a minister of God could confirm that this sin was absolved, and the punishment lifted.

How about the laws of ritual purity? Since God is considered holy, anything which is unholy is not permitted to enter into His presence. The rules of ritual purity were designed for this. In the Old Testament law, there were five main ways people became unclean (even if it’s just temporary): eating “unclean animals”; (e.g., carrion-eaters); giving birth; contracting skin diseases; genital discharges; contact with corpse. Leprosy fell under the third category. Coming into contact with an unclean person would also render one unclean. So strict rules like those given to St Damien (“Do not touch them. Do not allow them to touch you. Do not eat with them”) had to be observed to avoid contamination. Instead of doing this, our Lord “stretched out his hand and touched” the leper. In the eyes of the crowd, our Lord had been contaminated.

But instead of being contaminated Himself, He heals the leper. We are reminded that we do not only get infection through close proximity, we can also get saved by it. C.S. Lewis explains this beautifully: “Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection, if you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?”

The story of Jesus healing the leper ends happily for him but unfortunately for Jesus. At that touch, they were equals. Ironically, this man was now able to enter any town he wanted because he had been healed, but Jesus could no longer enter towns because of the news of this miracle had spread. He had become a social leper.

The healing of the leper was just a warm-up for what the Lord had prepared to do for all of us, a model of what was to come at the cross. When He died for our sins, for as many of us who have been washed in the blood, our sins died as well and Jesus was then able to be reconciled with the Father, from whom we have been separated because of our sins, our spiritual leprosy. By communion with Him, by participation in His cross, we could receive eternal life. He shared His divinity with us as we shared our humanity with Him but without Him taking away our humanity. Our humanity is thus sanctified by His divinity.

In the case of St Damien, although he entered into the most profound solidarity with the lepers by becoming one of them, he was never able to remove this disease from their bodies or the social stigma from their existence, what more his own. But in the case of our Lord Jesus, He has taken us into Himself. In exchange for our flawed and broken humanity, He has exchanged with us His sublime divinity. The Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen describes the sublime transaction of the In­carnation in which Christ said to man: "You give me your hu­manity, I will give you my divinity. You give me your time, I will give you my eternity. You give me your bonds, I will give you my omnipotence. You give me your slavery, I will give you my free­dom. You give me your death, I will give you my life. You give me your nothingness, I will give you my all.” So, let us turn to the Lord in confidence, humility and much love and ask: “Lord, if you want. You can cure me.”