TWENTY EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
2 Kings
5: 17-17|2 Timothy 2: 8-13|Luke 17:11-19
Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ,
There is a
story about one of our friaries in India. The Friary is named after St. Francis
of Assisi and we call in our language Assisi Snehalaya- House of Love. This is
a house set apart for the care and cure of the HIV affected Patients. It was
erected as a religious house around the year 2000, when in our society HIV-AIDS
was considered something like God’s curse for one’s wrong doing; therefore,
those who are infected must be expelled from the society. I remember, reading
the circular letter of our then Superior, addressing the need of the society.
He compared the situation of 20th century with the situation of
Francis’ time. “Francis, seeing the need of his society took care of the
lepers. In the same way, we (Franciscans) are called to respond to the needs of
our society and this is our responsibility to take care of the modern day
lepers-the AIDS patients[i].
AIDS is no more a threat in our society and therefore, they are no more lepers.
But I think the name is still so important. More than a physical ailment, it
can well describe the attitude of a society on people who lives in the margins
of it.
The ancient
world was terrified of leprosy, which is a contagious disease, and having no
cure they banished lepers from society. Lepers became outcasts, required
by the law to stand at a distance from people, and to shout ‘Unclean, unclean!’
when they saw anyone near (Leviticus 13:45f). The Samaritan leper in our
today’s story was doubly isolated, for there was deep religious hatred between
Jews and Samaritans.
What kind of
lepers that we identify in our modern world? St. Bonaventure brings up with
four kinds of spiritual leprosy that is possible in the background of this
Gospel in his Commentary on Luke. There is a possibility of the leprosy that
develops from the evil fear, there is a possibility of the Leprosy that arises
from carnal desires, there is a possibility of leprosy that develops from the
evil intensions of the sight and there is a leprosy that is the outcome of our
pride. Bonaventure develops these
spiritual ailments from the observations of St. Augustine on the theme of Fear
and Love. For St. Augustine says, “Love and Fear lead to every deed done
justly. In the same way, love and fear lead to every sin. In order to do good,
we love God and fear God. But in order to do evil, we love the World and fear
the world.”[ii]
Fear and
Love of God leads to an inclusive spirituality where nobody is alienated no
matter what they are. On the other hand, fear and love of the World build
exclusive agenda where narrowness of mind dominate everything.
Every society,
every group, has outsiders. How a group sees and treats outsiders is the
clearest indicator of the values the group is based on. Is there any
possibility of an open society where all are welcomed? We might expect that all
religious societies, since they claim to be in the service of God, would be
open societies; but some of them shrink into cults, and many develop cult-like
qualities. There is always a war between inner and outer. If the
outsider is regarded only as an enemy, then we can be sure that the inner life
is diseased in some way. This is how we estimate the life of an
individual; it is also how we can estimate the life of a society. An
individual who only knows who he or she is against, has no positive identity at
all; likewise a society.
A Christian
society that is deaf to the outsider and that marginalizes some of its own, can
hardly be described as Christian. Pope Francis, in his very first week as
pope, spoke about a tendency in the Church to “self-referencing.” A
Christian community of any kind is not a group of likeminded people who confirm
one another in their narrowness, but a group that reaches out to those whose
lives are in chaos, whose voices are not heard, whose presence is not welcomed.[iii]
Brothers and
Sisters, what kind of leprosy that we faces in our day to day life? Does my
Christian identity allow me to welcome everyone and accept them as they are? Or
am I afraid of my society and anxious about my social status which leads me to
take an exclusive position in which the other is my enemy and outcaste? This is
the challenge the Gospel gives us today.
May the
Eucharistic Lord, heal our troubled conscience and society. May we have the
light to see everyone as God’s child. Amen
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