The touch that makes us clean

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THE story of the leper who took the effort to get close to Christ, asking for healing, (cfr. Mt 8,1-4) teaches us several powerful lessons about faith, humility, God’s authority and the right use of good works.

As the story goes, a leper approaches Christ, kneels and begs: “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” And Christ responds not so much with power as with mercy as he stretches out his hand and touches the leper: “I do choose. Be made clean!”

Let us remind ourselves that though we may not have the condition of leprosy, we cannot deny that we are dirty, no matter how much we try to be clean, and we gravely need to be healed, to be pardoned and purified. Our weaknesses and sinfulness will always be with us all our life. We always need to go to Christ, begging for spiritual and moral healing.

But, yes, whenever we have physical illness or problems regarding our bodily health, we should not hesitate to go to Christ, asking for healing. Let’s imitate the example of the leper who humbly asked for a miraculous cure. But let’s take note also that he did this without forcing Christ. He opened his request by saying, “If you will” or “If you choose,” showing the kind of faith he had by letting Christ decide what to do with his plea.

It’s a good example of how we should make our requests to God, even those that are urgent to us. We can beg and beg, press our requests insistently, but we should be open and thankful for however God responds to our request.

This story of the leper healed by Christ also shows how Christ does not heal us from a distance. He enters into our woundedness. This was articulated well by St. Paul when he said, “God made him (Christ) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5,21) Christ is willing to assume our woundedness to truly cure us.

More than that, Christ told the cleansed leper to tell no one about the miraculous cure. It’s not because we are forbidden to be happy and thankful about a great favor received. Rather it is meant for us not to seek worldly honor or glory. We should all the glory to God and focus on translating that immense gratitude by outdoing ourselves in doing good works.

In the end, what we should learn from this beautiful story are that we should bring our need to Christ, even if we do not control the outcome. We should accept whatever God’s will is for us toward our request, doing it with great humility, and we should more generous in our self-giving without seeking applause.

The whole story somehow tells us that while we normally use only ordinary means to solve our problems of whatever type, there are times when we have to resort to extraordinary means because the predicaments at hand are just too big or complicated to tackle.

This is where we can say that we need miracles. We have to go to Christ, like those many helpless characters in the gospel who approached him for a cure. In other words, we cannot anymore rely on our human natural and human powers to handle these predicaments. We have to beg for miracles! Only with him, with his touch, can we be made fully clean.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com