2nd Sunday of Great Lent (Lepers Sunday) 1st March 09

[admin]

Reading: From the Gospel according to St. Luke 5:12-16, 4: 40-41

Dear and Respected Brethren,

Our Lord and Savior, who is the great Master, is making use of a leper as a medium of instruction to teach millions of faithful across the globe how to perform prayer. The leper in our Lord’s miracle is teaching through his own experience rather than an oral class or so. We have to consider the hope, faith, and style of worship of the leper.
1) Hope.
Though he was severely affected by the disease, he had a great expectation that if Lord Jesus wills, he will get complete cure. Nothing is recorded in the Gospel about the source through which he could build up such a strong and staunch hope. St. Paul compares hope of salvation as a helmet of the soldier. (1 Thessalonians 5:8) As St. Paul has stated in his first epistle to Corinthians 13:13, hope, faith and charity (love) remains interconnected.
2) Faith and love
In Hebrews 11:1 we read, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The leper who met our Lord had good faith in Lord Jesus. When the leper said “Lord if you will” he meant it as an earnest and sincere prayer. He believed that the Lord could heal him. At the same time, he was asking for the will of God. We often pray for our will instead of God’s will. The leper is teaching and advocating that we all must pray for His will and not for our will. When we would seek our God’s will and beseech for the same, we could realize the depth and width of God’s love. When the leper prayed for God’s will, our Lord put forth his hand and touched the leper. We also could enjoy the feather touch of our Lord God, when we might submit ourselves for God’s will.
3) Style of worship
When the leper saw Lord Jesus, he fell on his face on the ground. This is the ideal style of orthodox worship. Our Church Fathers have added prostration during the worships especially during the prayers of the Lenten Season. How many of us could make use of the opportunities available? Let us examine ourselves and evaluate our own conditions. The leper fell on his face. It is the same prostration, when and where eight parts of the human body might touch the ground. In Malayalam we call it Sashtanga pranamam/Kumbideel, meaning kissing our God’s feet. Actually we are supposed to make our forehead touch the ground. And every time we do so, we must feel and say in our mind that we are submitting ourselves to God’s disposal. The leper submitted himself to our Lord God, and he was completely cured.

Our Lord insisted the leper to show himself to the priest and to offer for his cleansing as per the Law of Moses. (Kindly refer Leviticus `4:4) Our Lord God is exhorting all of us to repent and confess the sins to the priest. Now we are passing through the days of the Great Lent. This is the right occasion to find out the sins took place in our lives since the last confession. Confession is to be taken on our own will and not at all on compulsion/inspiration. Let us have a genuine and meaningful confession at the earliest.

May God bless us all
Jose Kurian Puliyeril