Be Cleansed: Be Healed
Mk 1:40-45

Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy, CMF
Claretian Publications, Macau

The gospel today deals with the healing of a person with leprosy. There was a time when people with this illness used to be called lepers, as if it were their profession, like one calls a doctor or a lawyer! Thankfully, a new understanding of the illness developed and the usage of the term lepers is practically out of parlance. Leprosy is now completely curable with medication. But this was not the case at the time of Jesus. People with these illnesses were cast out from society, and the stigma remained with them.

There was no medication then for leprosy. Many types of skin lesions probably were considered as leprosy. Quarantining until a priest declares the infected person clean was the method of handling the illness. The work of the priest was to examine each case and declare a person ritually clean or unclean. A person might be clean or unclean before the declaration, but the declaration with the rites of purification was important.

The man’s request in the incident was to make him clean, a ritual act of declaring him clean to restore his social interactions. Reading deeper into Old Testament laws on cleanliness, one finds that a person with some kinds of skin lesions could be considered clean, especially if the priest thinks that the illness is non-contagious. Making someone clean is not the same as healing. Being “clean” is more like a court exonerating an accused for want of evidence to the act of corruption. It does not say that the man was not corrupt or not but that the evidences are not sufficient to prove one guilty. The man wants Jesus to declare him clean. What Jesus does is to make him actually heal. In the gospel of Mark, we find Jesus working on the inner healing of people. When the paralytic man was brought to Jesus, he gave him first an actual healing within by forgiving his sins. Then he deals with the external paralysis.

Jesus asks the man with leprosy to go and show himself to the priest and be declared clean. The text does not show that he went to see the priests to be declared clean and probably broke the law of purity. The one who gets an inner healing does not find the need to be declared clean externally. Feeling actually healed is better than being declared clean.

This has something do with our Christian living—living a holy life actually and being perceived as holy. There is a possibility that an unclean person appears as holy while psychologically harboring malice and evil. Jesus would call them “whitewashed tombs” that keep the outside shining while inside there is rotting flesh. Jesus has talked about this cleaning inside on other occasions as well. In Mark 7, where Jesus debates with the Pharisees on cleanliness, we are astonished to find that the Pharisees were complaining not about the hygiene of the disciples but ritual cleanliness. The concern was not about a healthy personal living but about traditions. Somewhere, the central focus is missing and they keep working on external performances.

To understand this deeper, it is enough to turn to the rite of purification of the priest before the offertory of the Mass. The priest says, “Wash away my iniquities and cleanse me from my sins.” The little water he pours on his hands is not enough to clean his hands and make him clean. But this signifies a spiritual cleanliness. The priest is invited to be spiritually clean before he offers the Mass. It is possible that even without such purity, the priest can go through the ritual of the prayer and hand washing. Jesus now insists that before and beyond the ritual, one needs to be actually clean.

If we focus only on the perfection of the act of ritual purification during the Mass and not the inner wholeness and holiness of the person, something is really bad. It involves a certain hypocrisy. The invitation is to keep the inside and outside clean.

© Claretian Publications, Macau
Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica 2024