“I will; be clean”
The day before he met the leper, Jesus was saddened by how much sickness people suffered, so much so that he left everyone who was coming to see and hear him and got up before dawn to go off alone with the heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:35). And who knows what they were saying? The answer isn’t hard to guess: Jesus was surely weeping over our condition and our human weakness and asking his Father to hasten the death of the cross so that salvation would be for everyone. And the heavenly Father was torn between the crucifixion of his Son and the crucifixion of humanity, each more bitter than the other. To cut a long story short, Jesus knew he would meet the leper and was eager to say to him, “I will; be clean.” He made his rounds and waited for the leper to come to him. Meanwhile, the leper was living his life waiting for death, not knowing that the Lord of life was on earth, and that with him there would be no death. Then came the chance to meet the Lord of life, and his trust in Jesus was enough for him to cut short all words and say, “If you will, you can make me clean.” Very few words, and Jesus’ answer to them was also very few words (Mark 1:40-41).
My brothers and sisters, today we are living leprosy in a modern form: the coronavirus has isolated us from one another, made us afraid of one another and afraid for one another, and we say, “God, where are you? Why aren’t you stepping in? Why have you left us to our fate?” But we don’t realize the cure is very simple: we must be like the leper and trust Jesus, because he is the Life, because he is the Way, because he is the Saviour.
Two thousand years ago the leper said with trust, “If you will, you can make me clean,” and Jesus’ answer was an act of mercy. And Jesus himself later asked the apostle of Divine Mercy, Saint Maria Faustina
(on 22 February 1931), to paint his image and write beneath it: “Jesus, I trust in you.” A phrase that, if we say it from the heart, can heal us of our spiritual and physical illnesses; and then Jesus will answer us as he answered the leper: “I will; be clean.”
Jesus, in this blessed season, and especially on this Sunday of the healing of the leper, we tell you, “We trust in you,” because salvation will come only through you, and we are sure of your healing answer.
Prepared by Elie Abou Zeidan
