CHRISTMAS WEEKDAY

I do will it. Be made clean. 

It’s understandable to focus on physical healing when we read that Jesus healed everyone who came to him, including the leper in today’s Gospel (Luke 5:12-16). We ourselves have needed healing at one time or another; we’ve all known and loved someone who needed it too. It’s right and natural to pray for whatever physical healing someone may need, whether it’s leprosy, a bad cold, or stage-four lung cancer.

But in addition to physical ailments, every one of us suffers from a spiritual disease: sin. It’s like a leprosy of the spirit. It numbs our consciences, it makes us feel isolated from God and from other people, and it can spread like wildfire. Sin produces outward “sores” like angry outbursts or broken relationships as well as inward ones: guilt, shame, fear, and a kind of paralysis that keeps us from turning to the Lord for forgiveness and healing. If leprosy is a wasting disease of the body, sin is like a wasting disease of the spirit.

“Lord, if you wish . . . ” (Luke 5:12). Jesus was emphatic. He absolutely, without question, willed that this man be made clean of the disease that filled him. And he always, absolutely and without question, wills healing and cleansing of sin for us. It’s why he died on the cross! Every time we come to him and confess our sins, Jesus says, “I do will it. Be made clean” (Luke 5:13). He wants us to be made pure and untainted by habits of sin and the paralysis and isolation sin generates.

Read again what this poor man did: he “fell prostrate”—he humbled himself before Jesus (Luke 5:12). His mind was focused wholly on the power and desires of Jesus. So kneel before Jesus today, whether in prayer or in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and tell him, “Lord, you know my sins. Will you make me clean?” As you do, believe that his answer to you will be the same one he gave the leper. His loving desire for you is holiness and freedom from sin. Jesus says to you today, “I do will your healing. Be made clean.”

“Jesus, I believe that you can free me of my sins. Heal and cleanse me just as you healed the leper.”

1 John 5:5-13
Psalm 147:12-15, 19-20
Luke 5:12-16

WORD AMONG US