26 June 2015
Friday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
We hear, from time to time, of surveys being done on the health benefits of various types of non-Christian meditation. Most of these forms of meditation deal with the emptying of the mind and of detachment from worldly concerns. Certainly, there are Christian forms of meditation that are similar, so we should not be too quick to condemn such non-Christian methods.
However, we must recognize that there is a certain value to Christian forms of prayer that accept the world, that accept our cares, that accept our temptations and our failings and bring them all before the throne of a God who loves us. This is the prayer of petition, and it is modeled for us by the leper in today’s gospel. “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
We may be rightly cautioned, however, not to become obsessed over earthly concerns. There comes a time when we have to let them go. At the end of the day, not even the worst leprosy or the worst sin or even death itself have the power to overcome love, because love became incarnate in the womb of a virgin, was killed and rose again on the third day.
For some lepers, it is not God’s will that they be made clean. For some sinners, it is not God’s will that they be immune from each and every temptation to sin. In all cases, let us not put our hope in our own physical ability to heal or in our own moral willpower, but rather, in the love and mercy of the God who truly heals and redeems us, Jesus Christ.