6/26/2015 – Friday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time – Matthew 8:1-4

      The 5^th – 7^th Chapters of Matthew’s Gospel contains the Sermon on the Mount, a long discourse of Jesus’ teachings that include the Beatitudes and the Lord’s prayer.  Right after the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew’s Gospel records a series of miracles and healings, demonstrating the authority of Jesus’ teachings. That is the context in which we hear Jesus healing the leper in today’s Gospel.

      When I read this story of the leper, I thought of the Louisiana Leper Home located on the banks of the Mississippi River, founded in 1894 in Carville, Louisiana on the site of an abandoned sugar plantation.  I remember the first year I was a priest at St Richard, I was planning a funeral with the sons of an elderly parishioner who had passed away.  We had picked out all of the readings, choosing traditional ones from the funeral planning guide, when we started talking about their father’s life.  The mentioned that their dad had been an occupational therapist, and the thing he was most proud of in his career was the several years he spent as a young man working with the lepers in Carville. I told the sons that we should pass over the Gospel reading we had originally chosen and pick this Gospel reading from Matthew about the healing of the leper. Their father had been so devoted to helping the lepers function as best they could through the effects of this terrible disease.  They really thought that this Gospel of the healing of the leper reflected their dad. 

       We can wait for miracles to happen in our lives, and sometimes they do happen. But what wonderful initiative the leper takes today in approaching Jesus and having faith that his touch will heal.  Do we approach God in prayer with the problems and struggles that we face in life?  Do we come to him in humility and gratitude?  Jesus can heal our bodies and our souls, but only if we place our trust in him.