Congregation for the Clergy: Learning from the Leper. 'I Do Will It. Be Made Clean'

What inspired the leper to this kind of total abandonment to the Will of Another?

We must ask for true humility like the leper in the Gospel reading who placed himself before Christ. "A leper came to Jesus" - pleaded Him, and "kneeling down", placed his life in His hands saying, "If you wish you can make me clean". 

P>VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online) - "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ" (1 Cor 11:1)!  St Paul's words sing with the force of the Liturgy in this the sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time and they indicate that our life's journey is to imitate Christ. 

It is an imitation that, even when it is voluntarily undertaken, no one is able to achieve alone.  Only those to who Christ Himself has given the grace to know and imitate Him are able to live that total identification with Him that is our sanctification.

Many people's lives, like that of St Paul, totally welcome the this grace and it then becomes a meeting and an authentic discipleship of the Lord.  The saints, who have become one with Christ, make the beauty and continual fascinating novelty of following the Lord present for us.

They have also become a 'concrete way' of how to really live our lives in relationship with Him.  It is enough to think of the great St Benedict of Norcia, St Francis of Assisi, or St Dominic of Guzan who many have imitated by becoming Benedictines, Franciscans, and Dominicans having undertaken a journey of sanctification which is recognised by the Church as a gift of the Spirit.

How can we possibly imitate the saints?  What is their holiness?  In what way are we able, like them, to embrace our new baptismal identity as Sons of God?  Certainly, it is not possible to imitate their works that emerged through the promptings of the Holy Spirit in a determinant place and time to benefit the Church and the whole of humanity. 

However, we can imitate their heart, asking and searching, with the same thirst for truth and goodness, for their total openness to God's work- work that God also wants to complete in each of us.  We can also imitate their promptness to act, with our whole being, to fulfil His Will.

We must ask for true humility like the leper in the Gospel reading who placed himself before Christ. "A leper came to Jesus" - pleaded Him, and "kneeling down", placed his life in His hands saying, "If you wish you can make me clean". 

We can still ask ourselves a number of questions.  What inspired the leper to this kind of total abandonment to the Will of Another?  What moved the saints to place their lives at Christ's feet so that they were able to do what was pleasing to Him?  What leads us to have the same profound certainty that animated Mary's heart upon hearing the angel's Annunciation and went as far as the foot of the cross? 

What gave St Joseph the strength to fulfil the work entrusted to him by the Lord and the martyrs the strength to face their martyrdom?  It was the compassion of God who descended upon us, that mercy of the Eternal One that came to earth and assumed a human face.  It is Christ, our only true Good and He doesn't want anything other than what is best for us.  He was born, died and rose from the dead and is truly Present in the Eucharist for our good! 

Therefore, we should abandon ourselves to Him without reserve and bringing ourselves before Him, kneel and tell Him our needs and petitions, putting His Will back into our whole lives so that we can hear Him say today as always: "I do will it. Be made clean."

Citations of
Lev 13,1-2.44-46:   www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/9abr0rj.htm
 www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/9cd51im.htm  
1Co 10,31-11,1:   www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/9bpw5zz.htm 
Mk 1,40-45: www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/9b30wqa.htm

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