Lectio Divina – Year B. 6th. Sunday in Ordinary Year (Mk1,40-45)
Continuing the account of the first stage of Jesus’ public activity, the gospel relates his meeting with a leper, a sick man who is unnamed. The only thing we know about him is his terrible illness. There are not many accounts in the gospel of lepers being healed. Apart from the parallel account in Mt 8,1-4 and Lk 5,12-16, there is only one other example given by Luke (Lk 17,11-18). Typical of Mark is the final prohibition: the miracle is not to be made public. We should not be concerned that the man who was healed did not obey the order received. Leprosy was a serious skin disease. At that time, leprosy was regarded as the illness closest to death, because of the physical disintegration that characterized it, the contagion that caused it to be feared and the repulsive appearance of the sufferer. Curing a leper was considered the equivalent of raising a dead person (cf Numbers 12,10-12). At the time of Jesus, the leper was not only suffering from an incurable illness. He was also an outcast from society, forbidden to live among the healthy, even to live with his own family. He had to stay on his own in an isolated place and, since he was considered impure, he could not even go to pray in the temple. Not only did he gradually lose his limbs as a result of the illness, but he was deprived also of the company of his dear ones and the consolation of visiting his God in the temple. The only thing he knew was that he was suffering from a terrible illness and enormous poverty. When he was freed from these, how could he remain silent.
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