In our Gospel today, we hear of Jesus having compassion for the leper who comes to him for healing in his life. This leper has faith in Jesus. He believes that Jesus can indeed heal him if he desires to do so.
We also are called to reach out to those around us who need healing and compassion. We might not even realize who is hurting around us. One of my favorite Spanish writers is the Chilean poet and educator Gabriela Mistral from the country of Chile. The anniversary of her death is this weekend on January 10. She died back in 1957. I studied her poetry when I studies back in the summer of 2002 in Chile when I taught at Greenville High School as a Spanish teacher. I thought of her in today’s Gospel, because of her great compassion, empathy, and warmth. In 1945, Gabriela Mistral was the first author from Latin America and only woman from Latin America to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. She started her career as a teacher and educator, where she displayed a great love for the poor children she would encounter. She also was a very devout Catholic, especially devoted to Franciscan spirituality. She was a Third Order Franciscan and was buried in her third order habit. Like St Francis of Assisi, her personal spirituality was marked by a mystical search for union with divine and all of God’s creation. I will close my homily today with a very lovely poem that Gabriela Mistral wrote entitled “Little Feet.” I used to have my high school students memorize it as part of our study of Spanish poetry when I taught in Greenville in the Mississippi Delta from 2000 to 2004.
Little Feet
Little feet of children
blue with cold,
how can they see you and not cover you
dear God!.
Little wounded feet
cut by every stone,
hurt by snow
and mire.
Man, blind, does not know
that where you pass,
you leave a flower
of living light.
And where you set
your little bleeding foot,
the spikenard blooms
more fragrant.
Walking straight paths,
be heroic, little feet,
as you are
perfect.
Little feet of children,
two tiny suffering jewels,
how can people pass
and not see you!
And here is the poem in its original Spanish:
Piececitos
Piececitos de niño,
azulosos de frío,
¡cómo os ven y no os cubren,
Dios mío!
¡Piececitos heridos
por los guijarros todos,
ultrajados de nieves
y lodos!
El hombre ciego ignora
que por donde pasáis,
una flor de luz viva
dejáis;
que allí donde ponéis
la plantita sangrante,
el nardo nace más
fragante.
Sed, puesto que marcháis
por los caminos rectos,
heroicos como sois
perfectos.
Piececitos de niño,
dos joyitas sufrientes,
¡cómo pasan sin veros
las gentes!
