Scripture Reflections for the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

“So the next time you run into someone who has hurt you or of whom you are suspicious, the next time you encounter someone who is living in a different world than yours, do not walk coldly past trying to avoid eye contact. Have the courage to touch that person with a hello or maybe even a smile.”

“venturing to that margins is still worthwhile, that it only gets better waiting and hoping and living on pilgrimage in search of Jesus of Nazareth, who is deeply present here at the peripheries.”

“St Damien discovered that he had leprosy when, plunging his foot accidently into scaling water, he felt nothing. This man, who physically was losing his sense of touch, was able to awaken compassion in the hearts of millions.”

“this is a story that can reveal to us the limits of our own compassion and challenge us to love more deeply and to help more sacrificially and generously. Here is also a call to think through the complex effects of suffering in whatever form it takes”

“So, the heart of this reflection is the value of kissing a leper, ie, of letting people touch my heart, so we can connect, and so God can come into the space between us”

“Barriers protect, but they can sometimes blind; pulling and moving barriers down can lead to inclusion, but they can sometimes expose one to longer-term confusion and even delusion.”

“Jesus directly confronted the Holiness Code of the Old Testament that ostracized many members of the community. Jesus incorporated outcasts, sinners, and the unclean in his new community”

“Mark tells us today that whatever we are suffering from does not really matter for our God. What He requires from us is to come out of our hiding places. He needs us to break away from the glue of incredulity and be optimistic that He is a life changing God.”

“Between holy and profane, between divine and created, between sinner and the righteous… Jesus moves the boundary.”

“The readings today are a little uncomfortable. We should feel uncomfortable. We should look our self in the mirror, examine our conscience, and stare that ugliness right in the face, and see where we need to improve, where we need to get better, lift up that rug and clean it out.”

“The real leprosy is not external but internal. What keeps us separate from communion with God and others is not something outside of ourselves.”

“No one back then could have realized Jesus’s identity properly before his Passion and Resurrection — any more than we ourselves can realize it today”

“Pride distances us from Jesus, and from other people, but is that really what we want?”

“So many of Jesus’ miracles involve touch because it expresses powerfully the way the loneliness which comes with illness and stigma is overcome”

“Here is the great saving scandal in which Christians believe, that God is scouring the limits of His creation, way beyond the boundaries we can manage, loving His creation even to its furthest, weakest, most alienated limits”

“In many ways, our societies are no different from those in the time of Jesus who excluded lepers from their society partly because it was felt that their sickness was on account of their sin; therefore their punishment from God”

“So the healing of the leper is a sign of what the mission of Jesus is about. Jesus admits the outsider. He takes by the hand those who are on the edge of God’s people and leads them into God’s city, rejoicing.”

“It is a myth to think that we are better off alone, separated from others. We all inhabit the same planet, and the life of each person is interwoven with the lives of others in one great tapestry of life.”

“So may you and I, each of us, be witnesses to the power of God, what he can do in our lives because we trusted in him enough to take one step after another”

“just as Jesus long ago, violating all the social and religious conventions of his own time, reached out to those who are compelled to say 'unclean, unclean' so now, now in the life of the Church he reaches out still to us”

“the greatest evangelist is the one who says 'I've been healed by my contact with this Jesus and now I want you to have the same experience”

“Whatever trouble we're in we should come to Jesus in the attitude of worship. He's the Lord, we're not. This is the key step in getting our lives in order whatever the issue is that we have. The key step is right praise.”

“Sinners are meant to approach Jesus with the same confidence with which the leper approached”

“Jesus is God in the flesh therefore the source of all compassion. God is the power and energy that connects all things.”

“the leper stands here not so much for just the socially ostracized but for those of us who have wandered away from right worship. Those of us who are no longer able or willing to worship the true God.”

“What do people see in the saint? Not so much the saint, they see God shinning through. What do you see in sinners? You see the sinner because the sinner's ego is blocking the light.”

“Whatever in you is distorted bring it with humility and with love back to Christ and then expect this healing to take place”