From the Pastor's Desk | February 11, 2024

If you try to read the Bible from cover-to-cover beginning with Genesis and working through it chronologically, it is usually when you get to the book of Leviticus that you want to quit.  Leviticus is a book of laws and can be a bit difficult to read.  Our first reading this morning, taken from the book of Leviticus, gives us the law regarding those who find themselves with leprosy.  The person with leprosy is to show himself to the priest to be declared unclean.  He shall keep his garments rent, his head bare, and shall muffle his beard.  He is to cry out, “Unclean, unclean!” and shall dwell apart from the rest of the community, making his home outside the camp.  This was meant to protect the rest of the community from contracting the disease themselves.   

This is a primitive way of foreshadowing or, rather, presenting the effects of sin.  Sin makes us spiritually unclean and it cuts us off from the community spiritually and, depending on the nature and degree of the sin, even physically and emotionally.  Sin separates us from each other and from God Himself.  In one version of the Act of Contrition, we pray that we are sorry because we have sinned against God and His Church - the Body of Christ.  

In the Gospel today, a leper comes to Jesus, kneels down, and begs Him to make him clean.  This is precisely what we do every time we go to the sacrament of reconciliation.  Jesus makes us whole.  Jesus, through his merits, grace, and mercy, puts us back in relationship with the Father and with the Church.  The Church holds us to a high moral standard because this is the way of the Lord.  Whenever we violate those precepts, we turn to Jesus through the Church and through the ministry of her priests who communicate Jesus’ love and mercy through the sacraments.  The right response to someone who kneels before the Lord and begs for mercy are the words, “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  The Church gives a radical moral standard but, at the same time, radical mercy.  There is no sin that cannot be forgiven when we truly seek forgiveness and offer repentance.
  
As we pray into this week, let us continue to strive for holiness.  And, when we stumble, slip up, or fall, let us have the courage to seek Jesus’ mercy in the sacrament of reconciliation.

Know of my prayers for you all!
Fr. Ryan

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