Dear brothers and sisters!
In the Sunday Gospels at this time, the evangelist St. Mark offers a series of miraculous healings by Jesus for our reflection.
Today, we are presented with a singular case, a leper who was cured (cfr Mk 1, 4045) after approaching Jesus and imploring on his knees: "If you wish, you can make me clean".
Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, "I do will it. Be made clean."
And instantly, the man was healed, and Jesus asked him not to tell anybody, but to present himself to a priest to offer the sacrifice prescribed by Mosaic law.
But the cured leper could not keep silent about it, and proclaimed to everyone what had happened to him.
As a result, the evangelist tells us, even more sick people came to Jesus from everywhere, finally forcing him to stay away from towns in order not to be assailed by crowds.
Jesus told the leper, "Be made clean". According to ancient Jewish law (cfr Lv 13-14), leprosy was considered not just a disease but also the gravest form of 'impurity'.
It was the duty of the priests to diagnose it and declare the sick person unclean, who must then keep apart from the community and live away from inhabited places until any eventual certified healing.
Leprosy therefore constituted a kind of religious and civilian death, and its healing a kind of resurrection. We can see in leprosy a symbol for sin, which is the true impurity of the heart, one able to keep us away from God.
It is not the physical ailment of leprosy, as the old laws saw it, that separates us from him, but sin, the spiritual and moral evil.
That is why the Psalmist exclaims: "Happy the sinner whose fault is removed, whose sin is forgiven" and then, addressing God, "I declared my sin to you; my guilt I did not hide. I said, 'I confess my faults to the LORD', and you took away the guilt of my sin" (Ps 31/32, 1.5).
The sins we commit keep us away from God, and if they are not humbly confessed, with confidence in divine mercy, they can even come to produce the death of the soul.
Thus this miracle [in Mark's Gospel] takes on a strong symbolic value. Jesus, as Isaiah had prophesied, is the Servant of the Lord who "bore our infirmities and endured our sufferings" (cfr Is 53,4).
In his passion, he would become like the leper, made unclean by our sins, separated from God: and all this he would do out of love, in order to obtain reconciliation, forgiveness and salvation for us.
In the Sacrament of Penance, the crucified and resurrected Christ, through his ministers, purifies us with his infinite mercy, restores us to communion with the heavenly Father and with our brothers, makes us a gift of his love, his joy and his peace.
Dear brothers and sisters, let us invoke the Virgin Mary, whom God preserved from every stain of sin, so that she may help us avoid sin and make frequent use of the Sacrament of Confession, the sacrament of forgiveness, which today more than ever must be rediscovered for its value and its importance in our life as Christians.
In English, he said:
I greet all the English-speaking visitors and pilgrims here today for the Angelus, especially the members of the joint Catholic-Orthodox pilgrimage from Finland.
I pray that the time you spend in Rome may deepen your love for Jesus Christ our Lord, and for his Church. In this Sunday’s Gospel, we hear how Jesus healed a leper who came to him and pleaded to be cured.
To those who turn to him today, Jesus continues to offer healing and strength. I encourage all of you to place your trust in him, and to bring before him your hopes and your needs, for yourselves and for your loved ones.
May the Lord grant your prayers and pour out upon all of you his abundant blessings.
Unusually, he had a different message for German- and Spanish-speaking pilgrims. whom he urged to follow the exhortation of the Apostle Paul "to do everything for the glory of God and the good of others - more than one's self- interest - following the example of Christ."
His full message in German:
In the second reading this Sunday, St. Paul tells us: "I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit but that of the many, that they may be saved" (1 Cor 10,33).
The apostle invites us to imitate him in this attitude. The selfless readiness to help our neighbor should radiate from the center of our heart because in this way, we accept the loving action of God upon us.
That is my duty as a pastor, and I ask you with your prayers and through your good works to sustain me in this service. May the Lord bless you and your loved ones.