LORD, IF YOU WISH,
YOU CAN MAKE ME CLEAN!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Friday after Epiphany is a prayer from today’s gospel, “Lord, If You Wish, You Can Make Me Clean.” [Cf. Luke 5: 12-16]

“Lord, If You Wish, You Can Make Me Clean!”

CLEANLINESS VS. DIRTYNESS

We know the difference between a clean bathroom sink and one with gobs of hard toothpaste and beard hairs and dark stuff which we have no clue to what it is.

We know the afterwards – slimy like feeling – squirming within us – when we break a secret or use the back of our hand to semi-whisper some dirt about someone.

We know the difference between clean and dirty.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel we hear about Jesus meeting a man in one of the towns he went into who had leprosy. This meant he had a visible skin disease of some sort. It meant he could beg in towns – but he had to scream out if people got too close to him – “Unclean! Unclean!” It also meant that he had to get out of town every night – and sleep in the fields or a cave or what have you.

He begs Jesus to heal him – to cleanse him – to restore him – and Jesus answers his beg. Jesus answers his prayer. Jesus heals him.

However, he now needs some kind of certification – some sort of approval from a priest at the temple. I couldn’t find out what kind of process this was – what it would consist of. It must have happened at times – because it’s here in the gospel. Did a healed person have to pay a fee? If yes, that seems strange – because where would they get the money? Okay begging. Life seems to be filled with tough stuff in olden times.

PRAYER

If you want help in your prayer life, there is in today’s gospel a method: go to Jesus or yell to Jesus like the man in today’s gospel. Beg Jesus for healing. Say, “Lord, If You Wish, You Can Make Me Clean.”

A suggestion: take a rosary and say on the 59 beads or just 10 beads, “Lord, If You Wish, You Can Make Me Clean.”

I have nothing against Hail Mary’s. I have nothing against the rosary.

Next if you say to yourself, “I keep on having distractions when I pray” I have two things to say to you.

First of all: distractions are normal. Keep on working on re-concentrating – but distractions are normal. Moreover, distractions are not sinful – unless they are sinful thoughts – like you spend your time in prayer inwardly complaining about someone in the family or some neighbor – of if you’re in church praying – and you keep on talking to yourself about what someone is wearing or what have you – without dealing with that someone or minding your own business – and you’re letting your inner complaining destroy or distort or de-energize you.

Second, take your rosary and say the prayer of the man in today’s gospel, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” Say it 59 times on the 59 beads – or just use your beads without counting.

I like to tell people, “Rosaries are not just for Hail Mary’s.”

I’ve been saying this for years. I campaign that people use rosaries to say short prayers on the beads – prayers like, “Help!” or “Thanks” or “Come Lord Jesus” or “Lord have mercy.” “Christ have mercy!” “Lord have mercy!” or “Hi Mary!” or “Hi God!”

My hope is that more people use the Moslem practice of praying while sitting around or walking around or as people are often seen on trains or buses or on public benches with prayer beads in hand – saying their names for God or what have you. “Compassionate!” “Merciful” “All Loving!” “All Forgiving!” “All Knowing!”

So I’m advocating here to say and to prayer – using beads: “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”

NEXT: THE DISTRACTION TO HAVE WHILE SAYING THIS PRAYER

The distraction or the thought to have while saying and praying, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” 59 times is this: simply think about feelings of uncleanness – uncharitable thoughts – gossipy thoughts – bad thoughts about others – or self put down thoughts – thoughts about things we’ve done in our life that we are ashamed of – or feel they ruined our life – or mistakes we made.

Whatever – makes you feel ugly from your past….

And then we go to Jesus in prayer and say, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
That’s what the man in the gospel asked for – to be cleansed – so I can be in better relationships with those in the human community.

Sin makes us self centered. Sin is something we do alone – in the dark – or in secret – or with a smiling face – but behind the mask – we’re hiding our better self from the community.

Make a mistake – and we focus on ourselves. A reader at Mass mispronounces a word – or reads the wrong reading – and then when they realize afterwards – they don’t hear anything else – but a “Stupid, stupid me!” with. That’s what they focus on – and miss everything else.

And Jesus will wash us and clean us and heal us – like he does to the man in today’s gospel. We hear that word “water” in today’s first reading. Let the Living Water of Jesus wash us.

Close your eyes at every Mass. It is the Last Supper here and now for us. Then picture Jesus with a bowl of water washing our feet – washing our memory – washing our soul – and drying us with a towel and patting our toes and saying, “Have a good day now! Serve one another!” “Love one another!”

SOME PEOPLE

I have no clue who this man was in today’s gospel – or what happened to him.

But I do know myself and I know others.

I know when I feel ugly or dirty or dumb or stupid. It’s usually after saying something wrong to someone. I could have kept my mouth shut but I didn’t.

As I was reading today’s gospel last night I thought of some people who would really be helped by today’s gospel.

I think of a girl I knew – the daughter of a couple who were very good friends of mine. The daughter was down to 75 pounds and was in bed all the time moving closer and closer to death. Her marriage had broken up. She moved back home with her 2 kids. Her husband disappeared. She had a one night stand with a heroin drug user and she got AIDS.

It was at the time when AIDS was being discovered more and more and more. AIDS was called the modern leprosy. People avoided people with AIDS – nervous about toilet seats and door knobs and breath – and what have you. They were isolated by many.

I was asked to see her and pray with her – and I forgot all that stuff when I was with a person. Here she was a real live specific person – not an abstraction – and I just held her and prayed with her and for her.

I think of a few priests I know who had to leave the active priesthood because they abused underage young people. Horrible. Criminal. It was a horrible crime that priests of our church did. There were cover-ups – and ignorance – and stupidity thrown in – and more kids were hurt. I have listened to the horror stories of those who have been abused. The abusers caused havoc in the lives of those they hurt.

Our religious community has as our focus the poorest and most abandoned souls. So I think priests who have been ousted from the priesthood because of abusing others – have to feel pretty crummy – and I hope they sit with Jesus in their horror – and feelings of uncleanness – having what some call “an incurable disease”. I hope and pray they too pray, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”

CONCLUSION

It also struck me last night as I wrote this that Luke has the added comment, “Go show yourselves to the priests.”

This is a bit off my point: Jesus heals us – but was someone in the early church advocating an early form of the sacrament of reconciliation or confession – by that comment from Jesus?

I was also wondering: How many times in the history of our church has it hit folks that this is a great text for confession? Next penance service I’m looking for a Gospel text, I’ll use Luke 5: 12-16.

Most biblical reference books point out that those with leprosy in Jesus' time didn't have the modern form of leprosy - called Hansen's Disease.

Picture on top of a Norwegian man with leprosy. I found it on line with the following as its source: "Pierre Arents printed the photographs for Leloir's monograph on leprosy titled, Traité pratique et théorique de la lèpre, published in 1886. This image is Plate VIII from that atlas." ca. 1886