The Gospel of Mark, chapter 41:42

A small boy, who was afraid of the dark, was not consoled by the fancy night light his parents had installed in his room, so he cried out in the dark of the night. His father came to comfort him, to calm him down with soothing words. As the boy’s father prepared to leave his son’s bedside, he said to the boy: “Remember, God is always with you.” To which the child replied: “But, I want somebody with skin on!”

We cannot long bear to be without human companionship. In a well-known study with abandoned infants, this fact has been scientifically documented. Infants deprived of human touch and companionship soon die. The same is true of the elderly who are too often pushed into nursing homes where, deprived of the companionship of family and friends, they soon fade away and die. The human spirit starves in the absence of simple companionship. To reach out and touch someone is literally life-giving. We all need someone with skin on.

Face to face with the fearful isolation and rejection of those afflicted with leprosy, Jesus reaches out with compassion. Medicine today can effectively treat leprosy, but in Jesus’ time, ignorance of the decease bred fear, hysteria, and a particularly severe treatment. The leper, similar to people with aids, was shunned from human society. This heavy indictment caused searing pain, deeper than the skin, deeper than leprosy itself. This strictly enforced exile of the Leper separated families and wrenched the human heart. The leper’s life sentence was to live apart, and to be deprived of the touch of human compassion.

The leper, in today’s scripture had been trained from his earliest years to see his affliction as shame; to announce his shame in order to protect the healthy ones; the very people who had exiled him and whom he longed to be with. This leper, who ached to be cured and restored to the circle of his family, placed his request in Jesus’ hands, and the amazing grace of Jesus turned the situation around. Jesus entered into the grief and pain of this man. Jesus broke the ancient rules for He couldn’t resist this man’s desperate need to be touched, to be healed.

At the touch of Jesus, the leper was made clean; he was a leper no more, and he could go home and join the circle of his family, delirious with joy.

We see here that God’s compassion deals in particulars. Most of the time, it only takes a small thing; a smile, a thank you, a helping hand, a visit to a sick bed. We are asked in this scripture to come to our senses; to reach out, to speak to someone, to touch someone with love, to listen compassionately, to heal.

This is how the compassion and healing of Jesus is spread all over the world.
Fr. Hugh Duffy