 Fr.
Tom's Tomes February 12, 2006
In this weekend’s gospel a leper comes to Jesus and asks to be made clean. The gospel of Mark relates Jesus was moved with pity, stretched out his hand, touched him and healed him. What a powerful sign of the love of Jesus for the leper and for us today. Jesus looks down and sees when we are not joined in community with one another. At the time of Jesus lepers had to remove themselves from the community because people feared leprosy. People at the time thought leprosy was contagious. We know now it is not. But at Jesus’ time the lepers must have felt separation being cast out of their town. We think about those we have cast out of our lives. At times each one of us judges others and we begin to remove them from our circle of friends or acquaintances. We might even begin to dislike them and hold grudges towards them. How easy our society and culture makes it for us to do away with people in our lives. If we look at the divorce rate in our country it indicates that even the institution of marriage and family suffers from the idea that we can cast off another person. How many friendships have we had when something has come up and we become upset with the other person and then turn and have nothing to do with them. The example Jesus gives in the gospel this weekend is for us to reach out and forgive others. Jesus was not afraid to go up and touch the leper. The healing Jesus gave was not only the physical healing from leprosy but also healing the person with the community from which he was removed. We in our lives need to be individuals forgiving others. We need to follow the example of Jesus to forgive and welcome back those who have been cast off. As individuals we need to look into our own lives to see the individuals we have cast aside and to follow the model of Jesus to forgive and to welcome them back into our lives and the lives of others. Forgiveness is a powerful example of love. Love is not only a feeling. Love is the acceptance of a person for their positive and negative characteristics. Love is knowing we are frail human beings. Each of us makes mistakes and we must also love enough to allow others to make mistakes and we are willing to forgive them. Since being here as pastor I have been talking about giving of time to the parish. There are many opportunities to do so. One immediate need if for more Eucharistic Ministers to take communion to the nursing homes and to the home bound. There is a need for us to welcome into our faith community those who are unable to attend Mass on the weekends. They at times feel the same isolation from our community as the leper did. People who are interested in becoming Eucharistic Ministers are asked to call the parish office at 646-0190 so we can register you for a training session. Another opportunity to help the parish, I would like to have three or four individuals who would be willing to work to invite those who are away from the Catholic faith to return. I am thinking about somehow sending maybe a quarterly letter to those who are Catholic but as far as we know do not actively attend Church here. Another opportunity is to join the Legion of Mary who calls upon people to welcome them into the parish and the Chillicothe Community. Members of the Legion of Mary also visit those who might have fallen away from the Catholic Church. The members of the Legion of Mary are good examples of reaching out to others who need a healing touch in their lives. God bless you. |