The Healing Touch of Jesus
6th Sunday, Year B, St. Donatus’ Pastoral Area, Sokale, Abuja, 11th February, 2024. Homily by Archbishop I. A. Kaigama.
Readings: Lev. 13:1-2, 45-46; 1 Cor. 10:31-11:1; Mk. 1:40-45
The Healing Touch of Jesus
I happily greet you the priest in charge, Rev. Fr. Istifanus Sheyin, your team of collaborators and indeed all your parishioners of St. Donatus’ Pastoral Area, Sokale. I have come to visit you, to pray with you, to bless you and to encourage you to keep strong in the Catholic faith. Times are certainly hard.
There has been a consistent rise in prices of foodstuffs and other commodities and the worsening economic hardships have resulted in pockets of protests in some states in the country and have also increased criminality. What do you say of the story of some parishioners aiding the kidnapping of their two priests to benefit from the ransom proceeds? I asked my driver to buy me a bunch of bananas in Akwanga on my way back from Shendam Diocese after joining them to celebrate the consecration of their Diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the inauguration of their pilgrimage centre, and only to realize that what I thought would cost N500 was offered to me for N1,600! I thought of returning the bananas, but I needed them. My friend in the village told me with great sadness how a measure of rice is now over N2,000! The political authorities must do something positive and promptly too, and in a well-coordinated manner nationally to reduce anger and hunger in the country.
The first reading gives an image of the despised state of lepers in ancient Israel. There is a lengthy prescription in Leviticus 13-14 concerning a variety of skin diseases among which was leprosy. It was the duty of the priests to judge whether a person was infected with the dreaded leprosy and whether he was healed. Lepers were segregated from the community and forced to live in isolation as outcasts.
Today, we know that leprosy is a contagious skin disease, but in Jewish culture it was a symbol of impurity. It was believed that leprosy resulted from sin and not from bacteria or viruses. Jews often sought spiritual rather than physical healing for leprosy. Our sin-infected and disfigured humanity is because we are suffering from “leprosy” of the soul, a soul without God. Only the sacraments can purge sins out of our souls and make us whole again.
In the second reading St. Paul taught that charity is the first law by which Christians must live. Charity seeks the good of oneself and those of others. He says, “I try to be helpful to everyone at all times, not anxious for my own advantage but for the advantage of everyone else” (1 Cor. 10:33). We too are urged to follow the example of St. Paul to respond with sensitivity toward others and not to exclude them from our friendship.
When we were growing up, I saw my elder brother who was a headmaster eat with a leper friend of his who came from a neighboring tribe. It was usual for us to hang around to take the remnants after my brother had eaten. Even if we had eaten enough, we felt his portion was sweeter. The day his leper friend would visit, we would stay far away, reluctant to collect the remnants because his leper friend ate with him with his bare hands from the same plate! I did not understand why my brother was not scared about eating with the leper. Perhaps, he understood that at a certain level the disease was no longer infectious. Or perhaps, he was living out what St. Paul teaches us today to model our lives on Jesus, to reach out to others with compassion and love especially those who are rejected and stigmatized.
In Mark’s gospel we see the touching encounter between Jesus and a leper. The leper came to Jesus with faith and hope in healing, to be free from the unjust and inhuman social isolation which lepers were subjected to. Lepers were denied any kind of help from the community; they were to appear in tattered clothes and carry the uncut hair of mourners and to stay away from healthy people. It was ritually and socially wrong for the leper to come to Jesus in the first place. With a gesture not only forbidden by the Mosaic Law, but profoundly counter-cultural, Jesus reached out and touched the leper with His hand, thus breaking Jewish social and religious barriers.
Jesus too, identifies with our sinful conditions, in our lonely and difficult moments, He is there for us. Like He touched the leper, we should ask Jesus to touch us, to heal the wounds of sin within us, to restore our broken human and social relationships and to make us spiritually clean again.
In our society today, ethnic, political, and religious superiority complexes make many look on others as lepers. Like Jesus, we must break those barriers that separate us. The candidates for confirmation will receive the Holy Spirit to make them Catholics of mature faith. They must have a generosity of spirit, compassion, and love to identify with others who are treated condescendingly. We all are called to be imitators of Christ, to care for those who are sick among us, whether of HIV or other degenerative diseases or those handicapped. We should not be too afraid as we were during the Coronavirus Pandemic; how we would not visit, shake hands, or share a meal with others for fear of getting infected.
We should treat sick people with compassion and not cast them aside or treat them badly because everyone could end up in a similar circumstance at some point.
May God bless us all and continue to keep us healthy. May He provide healing for the sick, both spiritual and physical healing, and bind us together in His love. Amen.
