A reflection upon the Gospel of Mark 1:40-45
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Whenever in the Gospels we come across a story about a leper, it always makes me think about
00:10 me, basically, because the leper seems to represent the person who is most powerless,
00:17 who's suffering, who's facing a terrible misery and affliction of whatever sort, over which
00:25 he has no strength at all.
00:30 He can't rise above it.
00:33 And the incredible thing about the lepers in the Gospel is this fact.
00:39 They don't give up.
00:41 They don't cave into despair.
00:44 They don't let their suffering become the meaning of their life.
00:51 Rather, they let their suffering lead them to the meaning of their life.
00:58 And they live with this tremendous expectation.
01:01 And that's why this Sunday when we hear the Gospel of the leper, when the leper sees Jesus,
01:06 he kneels down and he says, "If you will to do so, you can make me clean."
01:12 That kind of expectation before an exceptional presence who is Jesus is beautiful.
01:19 And in many respects, the way that we come to live that expectation is precisely through
01:26 what we suffer.
01:29 Our suffering leads us to be on the lookout for this exceptional presence and to surrender
01:37 to him with hope.
01:39 Because what is hope?
01:41 Hope means confronting the future with a certainty that we find in the present.
01:49 I wouldn't be filled with expectation if that expectation was not meant to be fulfilled
01:55 in the one who can fulfill it.
01:57 So no matter how miserable and afflicted our life might be right now, let's really live
02:03 the hope of the leper.
02:05 Let's really confront this exceptional presence that comes to find us in our suffering.
02:11 And we can do that like the leper by kneeling down and adoring him.
02:15 [silence]
02:17 [silence]
02:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]