Work done conscientiously by the Christian is his [her, etc.] share in Christ's service; but it is Christ's service, and therefore the Christian need neither be proud because it has succeeded or overwhelmed because it has failed. The service of Christ is supremely expressed in the apparent failure of the Cross.
- Anthony T. Hanson (1916-1991), The Church of the Servant
(How detached are you from the consequences of your service?)
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1 SM 4:1-11; Psalm 44:10-11, 14-15, 24-25
MK 1:40-45
A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him,
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.
Then 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;
that will be proof for them.”
The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.
Reflection on the Scriptures |
On approaching Jesus, the leper said: If you wish, which may sound like a matter of correct social protocol, but it is a key statement that presupposes faith in Jesus’ power to heal him. Without that power, wishing to heal would take them nowhere. That clause could also be interpreted by some as questioning Jesus’ compassion: do you care to heal me? But Jesus’
encouraging response recommends rather a positive interpretation of respect for Jesus’ mission: if it fits in your mission, if this is your will.
The leper’s question also opens the door to a possible counter-question by Jesus. Not that Jesus asks any such question, but in Jn. 5 he does ask the paralytic by the pool: do you want to be healed? It may sound like a dumb question, since Jesus knew that the paralytic had lain there for 38 years, yet it is not an idle question at all. Being made whole means that we have no
excuse to expect others to meet our needs. Hence the importance of Jesus’ question to the paralytic: are you willing to stand on your own two feet, both physically and socially? We need to question – and also to allow God to question – our desire for wholeness. Do I really want to be healed? The leper did.
- by Luis Rodriguez, S.J.
Revelations of Divine Love
- by Julian of Norwich
Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 67
"He said not: Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be afflicted; but He said: Thou shalt not be overcome"
And He gave me to know soothfastly that it was He that shewed me all afore. And when I had beheld this with heedfulness, then shewed our good Lord words full meekly without voice and without opening of lips, right as He had [afore] done, and said full sweetly: "Wit it now well that it was no raving that thou sawest to-day: but take it and believe it, and keep thee therein, and comfort thee therewith, and
trust thou thereto: and thou shalt not be overcome."
These Last Words were said for believing and true sureness that it is our Lord Jesus that shewed me all. And right as in the first word that our good Lord shewed, signifying His blissful Passion,—Herewith is the devil overcome,—right so He said in the last word, with full true secureness, meaning us all: Thou shalt not be overcome. And all this teaching in this true comfort, it is general,
to all mine even-Christians, as it is aforesaid: and so is God's will.
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