fire

The Son of God came and continues to come close to forgive, heal, and transform us.

The man in today’s Gospel scene takes a tremendous risk by approaching Jesus. He is a leper and so considered unclean. The appropriate response when someone was coming into his general vicinity would have been to give as wide a berth as possible, if not remove themselves from view entirely, or to make themselves known to be unclean to any passerby.

This state of uncleanness was not a mere sense of hygiene. This was considered ritual impurity. So anyone touching or being touched by a leper would be considered ritually impure. For this reason, lepers were ostracized from family, friends, and the larger community socially as well as being forbidden access to public worship. This is a horrific state to find oneself in, for as human beings we are social beings who want to belong, to be a part of, and to be loved.

The leper cast aside all social norms and fell prostrate before Jesus and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean” (Lk 5:12). Jesus knew full well the social norms, and it is very telling that not only did Jesus heal the man, but he did so by placing his hand on him. He could have easily said, “I do will it. Be made clean” (Lk 5:13), without touching him and the man would have been healed. There are Gospel accounts of Jesus not only healing with his word but also with his word from afar.

Jesus says more in his willingness to touch the leper than he does even with his words of healing. He does not keep the man at a distance but instead places himself on the same level as the man. In Jesus’ touch he is not made unclean, but the man becomes clean. The tremendous stigma of this man having to be separated from something as simple, yet as significant, as a human embrace is removed. With that simple touch, Jesus comes close and in doing so, the man will no longer be kept at arm’s length but restored to his community and the opportunity for fellowship.

This is what the Son of God has come to do. He has come close to all of us. He has become human so we can see the face of God. We can experience the tenderness of his touch, his closeness, and being understood when no one else can or is willing to do so. Jesus has come close so that we know that we are not alone, that we are loved more than we can ever imagine, more than we can ever mess up, more than our worst mistakes, or even our gravest sins. Jesus has come close so we can experience how it feels to forgiven, healed, restored, so to belong, cared for and loved.

Having received this wonderful gift of his love, we are invited to also come close and be willing to love one another. In doing so, we can move a bit closer to actualizing the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, “Someday after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love; and then for the second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire.”

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Photo: A few minutes before Mass this morning and preparing for Jesus to come close again in his glorified Body.

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, January 9, 2025

Be still, and allow the Holy Spirit to burn!

Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith.” (Mt 17:19-20).

How do the disciples get from this recurring theme of having little faith in the Gospel accounts to Peter healing a crippled beggar by saying with boldness, “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, [rise and] walk” (Acts 3:6)? And the man did just that!

A helpful definition “is to say that faith always entails a relationship between persons which stands or falls with the credibility of the person who is believed” (Rahner and Vorgrimler 1965, 164). Faith is not just an intellectual exercise, it is a lived experience. Christian faith is the conviction, belief, and relationship experienced with Jesus the Christ. The disciples learned from Jesus but more importantly developed an intimate relationship with him, such that the love they received and shared became so strong that there was no more room for doubt, distraction and/or fear, such that they would align themselves with the will of God and do what Jesus did.

The disciples did have some moments of doing as Jesus had done, but it was not until Jesus ascended and the Holy Spirit descended upon them at Pentecost that everything changed. Jesus had tilled the soil, he helped to unearth the rocks of the hardness of their hearts, he forgave them, and healed them. But it was not until they let him go after his Ascension that they were able to receive the Holy Spirit and by his power working through them they would do even greater deeds than he (cf. Jn 14:12-14)!

We are invited to do the same. If we only read the Gospels or hear them read we may know something about Jesus, but our life will for the most part remain unchanged. When we read, meditate, and pray with the Gospels and put into practice what we read, we will encounter Jesus as did his disciples. We too will come to know and develop a relationship with Jesus and our hearts and minds will be transformed by him. In this way, we are not just reading a dead letter but encountering the living Word, the Son of God, who invites us to share in the infinite dance of Love that he participates in with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.

The enemy will do everything in his power to distract, divert, and tempt us from setting aside time to pray with God each day. And when we actually begin to discipline ourselves, enter into quiet time daily, we are invited not to stay there but to go deeper, to move beyond only reading, meditating, and praying. There will be times Jesus invites us to set aside our Bible, notes, journal, prayer cards, and/or vocal prayers of petition, and to just be still, to listen, and receive the love that Jesus and the Father experience, the Holy Spirit.

The same Holy Spirit who empowered the Apostles to fulfill what Jesus had begun with them is quietly nudging us on each day. Please listen! He is inviting us to see more clearly those subtle ways we are being distracted, tempted, and diverted from his guidance and what has been inhibiting the growth of our relationship with God. The love and light of the Holy Spirit will reveal, when we are willing to remain still, where and how, in minute and massive ways, we are refusing to follow the will of God.

One of the reasons that we have “little faith” is that we rely too much on ourselves. We are invited to stand in the presence of the Holy Spirit and let his fire burn, to purify us from our own misguided thoughts of self sufficiency. As gold and silver is placed in a crucible and heated, the dross is purified. We are purified in the crucible of our meditation, prayer, and contemplation by the love of the Holy Spirit. Through this purifying light we will see that we cannot save ourselves, that we need a savior, Jesus, with his arms wide open ready, willing, and able to forgive us and love us unconditionally and continually.

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Photo:  A moment of stillness and purification back in December.

Rahner, Karl and Vorgrimler, Herbert. Theological Dictionary. New York: Herder and Herder, 1965.

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, August 9, 2025