Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Sorry that there won't be a homily this week. The Archdiocese of Portland is having its annual Archbishop's Catholic Appeal and we're playing an audio file from the Archbishop at all of our Masses. So I didn't need to prepare my usual Sunday homily.

Just as a means of encouraging your own prayerful reflection, I'll briefly mention some of my thoughts about this week's Gospel:

St. Mark recounts that a leper kneels before Jesus and says, "if you wish, you can make me clean" - and Jesus, "moved with pity," "stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, 'I do will it. Be made clean.'"  

Jesus does will that we be washed clean, healed, restored to community. Whatever the source of our brokenness, illness or exclusion He reaches out and touches us, eradicating any wall or stigma of separation.

And yet the faith of the leper is what makes this possible. His words are not merely a statement of fact - Jesus is indeed capable of making him well - they are an invitation: 'Lord, if you are willing to heal me, I am open to your touch. I will let you work in me as you see fit.'

How often do we say with our thoughts and prayers that we desire for the Lord to heal us and yet say with our actions that we would prefer to continue living as we are? Are we not sometimes closed to the healing Christ wants to give us because we are more comfortable in our sinfulness or brokenness? 

We sometimes prefer to remain as we are, because opening ourselves to the Lord's healing, being welcomed back into communion, might demand something of us we aren't ready to give. Let's pray that we will have the grace to say, and mean, "Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean."