From the responsorial psalm: “He has granted peace in your borders; with the best of wheat he fills you. He sends forth his command to the earth; swiftly runs his word! Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke (Luke 5:12-16)
It happened that there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where Jesus was; and when he saw Jesus, he fell prostrate, pleaded with him, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do will it. Be made clean.” And the leprosy left him immediately.
Luke relates a story of Jesus healing a man with leprosy. Taking place in one of the towns Jesus visits, Luke tells us that “It happened that there was a man full of leprosy.” In healing the man, and in the account of this that spread all the more so that Jesus would cure great crowds of all kinds of illnesses, it is not at all circumstantial. Jesus came to all people to proclaim the Gospel and to cure every disease among them. “Lord, if you wish.” Asking for healing in this manner, the man with full of leprosy is emptied of it only to be filled with the Lord’s healing and grace. “I do will it,” Jesus says. “Be made clean.” What Jesus wills is to please the Father in giving us abundant life. As we hear from John in the first reading: “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”
God, there is no accident in Jesus’ encounter with the man who has leprosy. If not leprosy, there is always some other physical or mental or spiritual illness. The great crowds came to Jesus to listen to him but also to be cured of their illnesses. Give me the grace, Lord, to understand that you do as you will and that your will is to bring healing and wholeness to those in most need of your mercy. Help me know peace today, Lord; fill me with the best of wheat. I know you will it.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.