Daily Catholic Lectio
Sat, 28 June 2024
Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time – Friday
2 Kings 25:1-12. Matthew 8:1-4
Faith and healing
In today’s gospel reading, a leper (leprosy afflicted person) approaches Jesus, kneeling before him and expressing his faith in Jesus’ ability to heal him. This encounter is noteworthy because leprosy was a highly stigmatised and incurable disease during that time. Lepers were considered unclean and were isolated from society, so this man’s act of approaching Jesus demonstrated great courage and desperation.
When the leper requests to be healed, Jesus responds with compassion and touches him, which would have been considered highly taboo due to the contagious nature of leprosy. However, instead of being contaminated, Jesus’ touch brings about instantaneous healing. He declares, ‘Be clean!’ and immediately the man is cleansed of his leprosy.
This passage highlights several important aspects of Jesus’ character and ministry. First and foremost, it demonstrates his deep compassion and willingness to reach out to those who were marginalised and shunned by society. Jesus’ willingness to touch and heal the leper shows his love and concern for the outcasts, emphasising his mission to bring healing and restoration to all people.
Moreover, Jesus’ response challenges the prevailing social norms and religious customs of the time. By touching the leper, Jesus not only demonstrates his authority over the disease but also challenges the idea that contact with a person deemed unclean would defile him. This act symbolises Jesus’ purpose to fulfil the law and bring about a new understanding of purity and holiness based on love and compassion.
Additionally, the leper’s faith is highlighted in this passage. Despite the prevailing belief that leprosy is incurable, the leper approaches Jesus with unwavering faith, recognising his power and ability to heal. Jesus commends the leper’s faith and grants his request for healing. This interaction serves as a reminder that faith plays a crucial role in receiving God’s blessings and experiencing His transformative power.
The first reading of yesterday and today brings before our eyes the event of the people of Israel being deported to Babylon. The city of the Lord and the temple are razed to the ground, and the Lord’s people are plundered by a nation they never knew before.
Psalm 137 is the song they sang when they went into exile in Babylonia (today’s responsorial psalm).
The author brings all the grief, suffering, emptiness, loss, lamentation, anger, and hatred of an individual human and the collective into one song.
Man is bound by stories. Constructed by stories, he composes the story so that no one will forget it. Whoever sings the song, within that person, the original man, the exiled man, the man who went into slavery, comes back and lives for a few minutes. The man who has read takes on himself the sadness of the man who has disappeared and leads a little further.
This is what happens on a river where they cross when they lose everything—land, temple, God and are taken from their land and taken as slaves to Babylon. There are countless verbs used in this language. If we read this song, we can see the speed of the song.
‘How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’ These are the words at the heart of this song. These words beautifully reflect the immense attachment they had towards their Lord and their ‘alienated’ (isolated, powerless) condition.
Our isolated state makes us cry. No matter what happens in life, whatever is going on, whatever isolates us, we need to ask, ‘Where did it go wrong? If we look at it, that is the beginning of a new life. Even though they were forced into a state of helplessness, it was because a little faith was in the hearts of the people of Israel, saying, ‘O Jerusalem! If I forget you, my right hand shall wither.’
It is this hope that makes us rise today and the next day. It was this belief that drew the leper to Jesus.
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An alienated person feels hopeful in the presence of a comforting neighbour (Jubilee 2025 AD, bite 136).
Fr. Yesu Karunanidhi
Archdiocese of Madurai
Missionary of Mercy
Yesu Karunanidhi 
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