THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

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A good Sunday for everyone. 

The Evangelist Mark told us about the early episodes of Jesus’ public life over the last two Sundays. We remember that he entered the synagogue in Capernaum, expelled a demon from a possessed person, and later entered the house of Peter and cured his mother-in-law of a fever. He then went out among people afflicted with all sorts of diseases, who were waiting for him in the square. This is the humanity that Jesus found. As we move through the Gospel, we meet people who introduced Jesus to those who needed his help. He came to heal sick humanity, not to judge or condemn it. 

And today, the Evangelist Mark speaks of another healing, the healing of the most feared disease in Israel, leprosy. It is a disease that does not kill but disfigures the person, making the person despicable, unrecognizable, and unpleasant. People feared lepers because they could infect them, and for this reason, lepers were abandoned, even by their families. They were marginalized by society, and Leviticus provided guidelines for how a leper should behave. He had to remain separate, away from society; he had to wear torn clothes, keep his head uncovered and his beard covered, and if someone approached him unintentionally, he had to shout immediately: ‘Go away because I am impure.’ 

Usually, these poor people lived in caves or tents; their livelihoods were entrusted to their families, or to some merciful person who brought them food but did not deliver it into their hands, leaving it in a certain place for them to come and get it after the merciful person had gone away. The book of Numbers, speaking of Moses’ sister, says the leper is like one to whom his father has spat on his face and even rejected. And the book of Job says that leprosy is the firstborn of death, considered incurable. 

To cure a leper was, in Jesus’ time, equivalent to resurrecting a dead person. Let us remember the answer given by the King of Israel when he received a letter from the King of Damascus asking him to heal the general of his army, Naaman, who said: ‘But does the king of Damascus think that I am God to cure leprosy?’ The condition of lepers was the worst imaginable because they were kept away from people and from God. Anyone struck by leprosy was considered a great sinner, and God had punished him for that. So the leper did not even arouse compassion because he had gone to seek misfortune and had to suffer. 

For all this, leprosy has become the image of the condition to which the sinner is reduced. Those who fall into moral degradation remain lepers. The state of the leper is the mirror of the sinner’s condition. I said that leprosy does not kill, but it makes one lose sensitivity; thus, a person can be burned or hurt and not realize it, and the consequences are dire. This is exactly what happens to those who lose their moral sensibility. Leprosy makes you lose your physical sensitivity, but spiritual leprosy makes you lose your moral sensitivity, no longer distinguishing between what is good and what is bad, what humanizes and what degrades, and you become unrecognizable as a person. Let us think of an indulgent person, a criminal, who loses his human aspect, but also those who are dishonest, a cheater, a careerist, a quarrelsome person, or a selfish person, who lose their human aspect and become unpleasant. These people are wrong. We say, ‘Bad people, it’s better to stay away from them.’ We don’t trust these people. We try not to have anything to do with them, and we ostracize them as if they were lepers. 

And let’s also think about the image of humanity. The image of the demons present in humanity. The image of the diseases that afflict humanity. But the strongest image is that of a leprous humanity, marked by all kinds of violence and injustice, where creation is devastated because everyone thinks only of themselves. It is humanity that is presented as degraded and ugly, and many say that leprosy, this spiritual leprosy that disfigures the person and humanity, is incurable; people will always be bad and selfish, competing and hurting each other; it is incurable leprosy. The question is whether this leprosy, which disfigures people and humanity, is incurable. 

Today’s Gospel passage answers this question. Leprosy is indeed incurable for people, but God can introduce into the world a word that cures leprosy. Let us read the episode we now hear in this light and in this symbolism: 

At that time, a leper came to him, knelt, and begged him, saying, ‘If you wish, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, ‘I do will it. Be made clean.’ The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean. 

In the gospels, we see that the sick generally do not go to Jesus alone; someone always cares for their condition, hoping they can be healed, and leads them to Jesus. Instead, this leper goes alone; no one can accompany him because no one can get close to him, and above all, no one has the hope that he can be restored to life and to a relationship with people and God. His condition is desperate; he has lost everything: his family, affections, and friends. He has also lost his relationship with God; he cannot be healed because only God can heal him. And he cannot turn to God because he knows that, in his condition, he is repelled by God; God rejects him; he cannot set foot in the temple. 

This is the image of God that has been instilled in this poor person’s heart, and let us be careful, because it is still the image of God that is present in the hearts and minds, even of many Christians. God’s conception is that if you are ugly, dirty, and wrong, He does not look at you, wants you to move away from Him, and, if by chance you die without asking for forgiveness, rejects you forever. If, on the contrary, you are good and behave well, then He welcomes you into His eternal abodes. 

The first condition for being cured of leprosy is to recognize that this is a diabolical image of God; therefore, you cannot be cured of leprosy if you do not come close to God or feel rejected by God. This leper goes to Jesus and does something that goes against the provisions dictated by the Jewish religion and the traditions established by the rabbis. He will be cured because he has the courage to detach himself from this image of God and turn to Jesus. Certainly, he has heard of him as a man of God, like Elisha, who cured Naaman. 

Let’s see how he approaches Jesus. He gets down on his knees; he does not yet know how Jesus will react because he is not supposed to approach him; he is transgressing the religious provisions. He says, ‘If you will, you can make me clean.’ He does not say, ‘Heal me,’ but ‘Purify me.’ He cannot approach people or God because he is unclean. He says: ‘I see that you present me with a different God from what the rabbis taught me. You can purify me.’ 

Now let’s look in detail at Jesus’ reaction, because he shows us the actual image of God, the image of God that the leper can approach with the certainty of being welcomed and cured. The text says, ‘moved with pity.’ The Greek verb is ‘σπλαγχνισθεὶς’ – splagchnizein = ‘brought to compassion,’ but there is a textual problem because this does not seem to be the verb used by the Evangelist Mark, who used another, ‘orguistheis,’ which means ‘indignant’ or ‘angry.’ 

Bible scholars, when faced with two terms and unsure which the evangelist uses, have to choose the more difficult one. Between the two, ‘moved with pity’ and ‘has become indignant’ at the leper, the more difficult is undoubtedly the second, because it is much easier for a copyist, not having understood why Jesus was indignant, to write σπλαγχνισθεὶς (splagchnizein, ‘took pity’) than to write the verb that would mean Jesus was moved to pity; no one would have thought to say he was outraged. Let us keep the verb that was most probably used by Mark: ‘Jesus was indignant.’ 

Let us try to understand, then, what fit of anger Jesus felt when he met a poor leper before him, a man who felt excommunicated, while he himself felt like a person in need of help. Jesus is indignant that this image of God has been instilled in this poor man’s heart; it is the indignation of God in the face of the disfigured preaching of his identity. And I share with you that it is also the anger I feel when I meet people who have turned away from the Church and God because of this preaching of a blasphemous face of God. God is not as certain traditions have taught. 

And now the turning around of the image of God begins. The true God is the one we now see in Jesus, not the one of tradition. All gestures speak to us of the true God. Jesus extended his hand. It was not necessary. It was enough that his word cured the leper; why does Mark mention the detail that he extended his hand? This is an expression found in the Old Testament: when God extended his hand, he would strike the enemies of his people. It is not about persons; when God extends his hand, enemies are not persons. They are the enemies of man who are beaten. In this case, it is not the leper who is beaten by the hand of God, but leprosy that destroys in man the image of his Creator. 

And then Jesus touches him. Touch is the sense that puts us more in touch with each other. I can look at the other with a smile and tell them I appreciate them, but until I touch and embrace them, there is no full expression of affection or acceptance of the other. Jesus touches and caresses the leper; this is our God, the God we now see in Jesus of Nazareth. The Pharisees imagined him as the holy, separate God, and here, instead, people find themselves before a God who, already at baptism, stood by the sinners and, even here, caresses the leper and says to him: ‘I want you to be purified.’ He is cured, and immediately after, the leprosy disappears. 

According to tradition, when a pure person touched a leper who was impure or anything impure, it was not the person’s ‘purity’ that purified the impure; the impurity was stronger. Here, however, the opposite is true. It is not Jesus who becomes impure; in Jesus, there is a force that heals all forms of impurity. This is the God we can approach today, knowing that He caresses us, whatever the leprosy that has disfigured our human face, which should be the image made in the likeness of God. Now we see a surprising reaction from Jesus to the leper who has been cleansed. 

Let us listen: 

Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once. He said to him, ‘See that you tell no one anything, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed.’ 

And now the evangelist Mark inserts a verse that I think many preachers will try to miss when he writes: “warning him sternly,” warning the leper who had been healed and casting him out. Why does Jesus do this? Jesus “dismissed him at once,” even though he had just caressed him. Here we use two Greek verbs that are very strong. The first one: ἐμβριμησάμενος – embrimeámenos, which means ‘to complain’ or ‘to grunt.’ Something must have irritated Jesus about this leper. And then the verb ‘ἐξέβαλεν’ – ‘exebalen,’ which means to cast out, as if it were a plague. 

But what is it that this leper does that makes Jesus so indignant? How is it that he admonishes him and throws him out? The reprobation means that the leper did something he shouldn’t have done; he should have been more careful. He believed that God had excluded him from his love. It is as if Jesus told him: ‘How could you think this about God? God does not exclude anyone from his love, no matter what condition they are in.’ 

Even today, some people are convinced that, because of their situation, they have committed serious misconduct, live in a state of sin, cannot approach the sacraments, and cannot receive communion. Are they convinced that God does not love them, excludes them, or rejects them? How can they think such a thing? Jesus is indignant, first of all, with the one who has spoken thus of God, but he will also rebuke the one who has believed this catechesis: how can you think of being excluded from God’s love? 

There is no sin, no guilt, no condition that can keep you from feeling loved by the Father in heaven. Let us remember what the first letter of John says, one of the most beautiful phrases in the Bible: “Even if your heart reproaches you, remember that God is greater than your heart.” Therefore, if you give your allegiance to this garbage that has been preached about God, you also have a responsibility; you should not have listened to those who preached these lies about God. 

And then he sends him out. It is not said that they were in a room, since, in all probability, they were out in the open. Why does he send him out? Sent out from that religious environment, from that mentality, from that catechesis that irritated Jesus. He said, “See that you tell no one anything, but go, show yourself to the priest… that will be proof for them.” Here, the Greek text has two meanings. ‘You don’t have to talk about the miracle that could be misunderstood; you just must present yourself to the priests,’ which at that time was the hygiene office, where it was carefully checked whether a person was cured of leprosy and could therefore be readmitted to society. “To be proof for them” = You must testify to the priest that God does not exclude lepers from the temple, as they do, because God loves every person. 

Now let’s hear what the leper who was purified did: 

The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report throughout the region, making it impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere. 

The leper left and began to spread the word, transgressing the order Jesus had given not to say anything to anyone. But the original Greek text doesn’t say so; it doesn’t say that he left, but ‘ἐξελθὼν’ – exertion = that he went away… from where? He was inside a religious institution that had instilled meaningless ideas about God, and Jesus threw him out. He moved away from the circle of those who wanted him to remain faithful to the rabbis’ catechesis. He went out and not only did he not want to go back in, but he wanted others to go out too, to experience his liberation and his joy. He began to proclaim and spread the word. 

Not only the fact, but ‘τὸν λόγον’ – the message. He wants everyone to know what he has understood, and he will say to everyone: ‘Look, God is not as we were taught. God does not discriminate against people. He offers his love to all. I was a leper, and I understood that He loved me madly. You should all know this.’ 

And perhaps someone might object at this point: ‘But if God loves everyone, even those who misbehave, then I will do what I want.’ It is beautiful to be a leper, isn’t it? It would be as if the cured leper said, ‘Since God loves me anyway, I’d rather go back to being a leper.’ That’s silly; it’s better not to talk about it. He is saying, ‘Remember, when you feel like a leper, don’t feel far from God. Because you feel loved, you will approach Him who alone can heal you, the only one who can make you beautiful, like the Father in Heaven.’ And at this time, says the evangelist Mark, Jesus could no longer enter a city publicly, but he had to stay out… why? Because he had become impure by touching a leper and therefore must keep away from pure people. It is great that our God goes where there are lepers and not where some consider themselves just. 

The text concludes by saying that everyone came to him. One goes to God when one understands that He loves us as we are. 

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.