Thursday of the First Week of Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: RB 2:11-15Mass: 1 Samuel 4:1-11; Resp. Psalm 44; Mark 1:40-45
Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom andcured every disease among the people.ALLELUIA

We are busy this week listening to accounts of Jesus healing people and driving demons.  By this point we should be convinced that Jesus has preferential option for the sick, lame, possessed, suffering and outcast. We are a wounded people. Pope Francis rightly calls the Church a field hospital. So many are in need of healing—old wounds that won’t heal, trauma, abuse, neglect, broken relationships, rejection, disappointments, unrealized expectations. Put simply, we are limping along. There are days when we want to throw up our hands and cry: “Dear Lord, why me’? ‘Look what “they” have done to me’! The beauty of the situation in which we find ourselves is that Jesus prefers men and women and children like us. He looks at us; touches us; helps us up; repairs us. Put another way, he will bring us out of most any pit. Like the leper in today’s Gospel, we need to take charge and get ourselves to the hospital. The leper goes, kneels down, and begs Jesus: ‘If you wish, you can make me clean.’ Jesus has pity on us. May we welcome His love, mercy, compassion, and healing presence in our midst.
I WILL DO IT.BE MADE CLEAN.