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The Perspective of Justice
6th Sunday of Ordinary time
Year B
February 14, 2021
Gerald Darring
Open to New Life

On the one hand, there are suffering human beings like Job, slaves longing for the shade. On the other hand, there is God who cares about us, who heals the brokenhearted. Leprosy was a terrible disease in biblical times. Highly contagious, it was fatal, since there was no cure for it. The law could do nothing other than exclude lepers from participation in the life of the community.

There was more to it than that. The Responsorial Psalm 32 is a reminder that in biblical times people often regarded sin as the cause of disease. Lepers were therefore sinners, and the community excluded them from its worship. In a theocracy such as Israel, exclusion from the temple was a fate worse than death.

Jesus enters the scene as the healer of lepers. Those, for whom the law offers no hope, find in Jesus their savior, their key to re-entry into the human community.

We have our own “lepers” today. They are the wretched people of the world’s slums, the ones dying of Covid-19, the ones sitting on death row. The law of society has nothing of hope to offer them. Their only hope is in the “great prophet [who] has appeared among us,” and in those followers of Jesus like Paul, “seeking not my own advantage, but that of the many.”

The mystery of the human condition is such that, in one way or another, all will face pain, reversal, and, ultimately, the mystery of death itself. Seen through the eyes of faith, however, this mystery is not closed in upon itself.

Through sharing in the cross of Christ, human suffering and pain have a redemptive meaning and goal. They have the potential of opening a person to new life. They also present an opportunity and a challenge to all, calling us to respond to suffering just as Jesus did—with love and care.

U.S. Bishops, 1987, The Many Faces of AIDS:
A Gospel Response

Gerald Darring

Now published in book form, To Love and Serve: Lectionary Based Meditations, by Gerald Darring. This entire three year cycle is available at Amazon.com.


Art by Martin Erspamer, OSB
from Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical Year (A, B, and C). This art may be reproduced only by parishes who purchase the collection in book or CD-ROM form. For more information go http://www.ltp.org