Gospel Reflection: 6th Sunday of Ordinary time.
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| Our Lady of Lourdes Tapestry |
This is the final Sunday in Ordinary time before Lent begins this Wednesday with the Ashing.
If this wasn't a Sunday today would be being kept as the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes! Our Lady is one of the two patron saints of the Diocese (the other being St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne.
Both are commemorated under the choir loft in tapestry images...had you noticed ?)
This is a good time to make sure you are ready for Lent 2024. Prepared to spend some time in the wilderness with The Lord so as to celebrate the new life of Easter with renewed zeal.
Leprosy isn't dead its changed its expression
This Sunday’s gospel concerns the Lord’s powerful encounter with a Leper. In an age before infection was understood, people with any skin condition or disfigurement were cast outside of settlements, and unable to support themselves from the land, their families would come near to their place of exclusion to feed them and do their best to look after them. But touching them, even in a compassionate way was strictly forbidden. Remarkably the leper in this story comes up to the Lord and challenges him: “If you want to you can cure me!” he invites. His faith is rewarded by the cleansing of his condition. Despite a warning from the Lord that he should keep the cure a secret, the now former leper tells anyone who would listen of this great miracle. So muc so that many more people come to Jesus looking for his healing touch, so much so that he can only gather outside of villages and settlements...almost as if he himself was now a leper. From what does the Lord need to cure you? What in your life would benefit from the Lord’s healing touch. But furthermore, even if leprosy of the skin no longer affects people in the UK, who are the people in our lives we treat as lepers? The people we keep at arm’s length? Perhaps family members we have become accustomed to “blanking”, or former friends we have not spoken to in a long while. Leprosy isn't dead...it’s changed its expression. Fr Steve.