If one analyzes and observes closely the public ministry of Jesus, he seems to shake the social norms of his time, at times acting opposed to what was normally or culturally expected. When lepers were supposed to be avoided and shunned upon, Jesus touched them. Touching a leper was seen as not just taboo, but also the Jews during Jesus’ time believed that it made one ritually and spiritually unclean.  Other examples of cultural defiance on the part of Jesus in the Gospels would be the ritual prescription of washing before eating, non-observance of Sabbath laws, etc. Scribes and Pharisees often criticized Jesus as a subversive revolutionary who had no respect of the Law of Moses, which was the holy constitution of the Jewish religion and society.
           What the scribes and Pharisees missed and misunderstood is that Jesus was trying to let them understand that the dignity of the human person comes first before all those external laws, reminding them that external laws are there to safeguard and protect the integrity of the human person as created in the image and likeness of God. So when Jesus touched the leper and cured him, Jesus didn’t do that to invalidate the cultural sentiments of his time towards leprosy, but to remind them that shunning your sick brother and sister and putting them in the margins because of their disability is contrary to the ultimate commandment of love. Jesus might have defied the norm of not touching a leper, but it is interesting that he specifically asked the leper after he was cured that he must show himself to the priest as prescribed by the Jewish law. In effect, he was equally saying, “I am not here to abolish the laws but to fulfill them”.
     “Lord, if you wish you can make me clean” – words of supplication, of pleading, of trust and hope —simple clamor to the Lord that we can make as our own. We can make it as part of our daily prayer. I would like us to go back again to the disposition or posture of the leper as he uttered those words. The evangelist Mark said that the leper came to Jesus, kneeling and begging. There are times when we find ourselves at the very bottom of our lives, like that of the leper, that the only way to get up is by kneeling first, pleading the Lord for his reinvigorating and renewing grace.  “Lord, if you wish you can make me clean.”  What are those things that we need be cleaned from? Let’s come to the Lord, and beg him to make us clean once again — after all, it is our original dignity as created in his own image and likeness.
     As Jesus touched and cured the leper in the Gospel today, he is willing to touch us too and free us from anything that separates us from the love of God and of others. But we have to be able to have the courage to cry out like the leper, “if you wish you can make me clean.”  What are those modern spiritual leprosies that have excluded us from growing in our relationship with God and other people? It is about time to be cured from those things so we may experience anew the liberation and joy of being part of God’s family. – Fr. Cary