Navarre Bible Commentary:Thursday, 1st Week of Ordinary Time

The Healing of the Leper by Roselli

Mark 1:40-45

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

Jesus Cleanses a Leper

40 And a leper came to him beseeching him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.”41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And he sternly charged him, and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to any one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to the people.”[a] 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus[b] could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Footnotes:

1. Mark 1:44 Greek to them
2. Mark 1:45 Greek he

[Footnotes from Bible Gateway]

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 1504 and 2616.

Commentary

Curing of a leper

1:40–44. Leprosy was seen as a punishment from God (cf. Num 12:10–15). The disappearance of the disease was regarded as one of the blessings of the messianic times (Is 35:8; cf. Mt 11:5; Lk 7:22). Because leprosy was contagious the Law declared that lepers were impure and that they transmitted impurity to those who touched them and to places they entered. Therefore, they had to live apart (Num 5:2; 12:14ff) and to show that they were lepers by certain external signs. On the rite of purification, see the note on Mt 8:4.

The passage shows us the faithful and confident prayer of a man needing Jesus’ help and begging him for it, confident that, if our Lord wishes, he can free him from the disease (cf. Mt 8:2). “This man prostrated himself on the ground, as a sign of humility and shame, to teach each of us to be ashamed of the stains of his life. But shame should not prevent us from confessing: the leper showed his wound and begged for healing. If you will, he says, you can make me clean: that is, he recognized that the Lord had the power to cure him” (St Bede, In Marci Evangelium expositio, in loc.).

On the discretion and prudence Jesus required regarding his person, see the note on Mk 1:34 and Mt 9:30.

[See also the commentary from the parallel passage in Luke 5:12-16.]

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome

Navarre Bible Commentary:Friday after Epiphany

Luke 5:12-16

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

Jesus Cleanses a Leper

12 While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and besought him, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” 13 And he stretched out his hand, and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him. 14 And he charged him to tell no one; but “go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to the people.”[a] 15 But so much the more the report went abroad concerning him; and great multitudes gathered to hear and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he withdrew to the wilderness and prayed.

Footnotes:

1. Luke 5:14 Greek to them

[Footnote Source: Bible Gateway]

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraph 2062.

Commentary

Curing of a leper

5:12. The words of the leper are a model prayer. First, they show his faith. “He did not say, ‘If you ask God for it …’, but ‘If you will’ ” (St John Chrysostom, Hom. on St Matthew, 25). He rounds this off by saying, “You can”—an open confession of Christ’s omnipotence. The psalmist expressed this same faith: “Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Ps 135:6). Along with this faith he shows confidence in God’s mercy. “God is merciful; there is no need therefore to ask him; all we have to do is show him our need” (St Thomas Aquinas, Comm. on St Matthew, 8, 1). And St John Chrysostom concludes: “Prayer is perfect when it is joined to faith and confession; the leper showed his faith and confessed his need out loud” (Hom. on St Matthew, 25).

“ ‘Domine!—Lord—si vis, potes me mundare—if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ What a beautiful prayer for you to say often, with the faith of the poor leper, when there happens to you what God and you and I know may happen! You will not have to wait long to hear the Master’s reply: ‘Volo, mundare! I will be clean!’ ” (St Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, 142).

5:13. Jesus listens to the leper’s petition and cures him of his disease. All of us suffer from spiritual ailments and our Lord is waiting for us to approach him: “He is our physician, and he heals our selfishness, if we let his grace penetrate to the depths of our soul. Jesus has taught us that the worst sickness is hypocrisy, the pride that leads us to hide our own sins. We have to be totally sincere with him. We have to tell the whole truth, and then we have to say, ‘Lord, if you will’—and you are always willing—‘you can make me clean’ (Mt 8:2). You know my weaknesses; I feel these symptoms; I suffer from these failings. We show him the wound, with simplicity, and if the wound is festering, we show the pus too. Lord, you have cured so many souls; help me to recognize you as the divine physician, when I have you in my heart or when I contemplate your presence in the tabernacle” (St Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, 93).

5:16. The Third Gospel frequently draws attention to Jesus going off, alone, to pray (cf. 6:12; 9:18; 11:1). By doing this Jesus teaches us the need for personal prayer in all the various situations in which we find ourselves.

“Forgive me if I insist, but it is very important to note carefully what the Messiah did, because he came to show us the path that leads to the Father. With our Lord we will discover how to give a supernatural dimension to all our actions, even those that seem least important. We will learn to live every moment of our lives with a lively awareness of eternity, and we will understand more deeply man’s need for periods of intimate conversation with his God, so as to get to know him, to invoke him, to praise him, to break out into acts of thanksgiving, to listen to him or, quite simply, to be with him” (St Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, 239).

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome