{"id":7432,"date":"2015-02-21T15:14:16","date_gmt":"2015-02-21T15:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=7432"},"modified":"2015-02-21T15:14:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-21T15:14:36","slug":"6th-sunday-of-ordinary-time-15-02-15-what-leprosy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=7432","title":{"rendered":"6th Sunday of Ordinary Time (15.02.15) What Leprosy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

6th Sunday of Ordinary Time (15.02.15)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

What Leprosy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” <\/em>
\nMoved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.” <\/em>
\nThe leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.\u201d<\/em> (Mark 1.40)<\/p>\n

On the 6th<\/sup> Sunday of the Year we read this extract from Mark\u2019s Gospel. For Europeans leprosy is unknown and, therefore, unimaginable. By contrast, worshippers in Angola, Brazil, the Central African Republic, India, China, Madagascar, Nepal, Tanzania, the Congo and Mozambique, to list just some affected countries, will know that leprosy remains a scourge.<\/p>\n

According to official reports received from 115 countries and territories, the global registered prevalence of leprosy in early 2013 stood at 189,018 cases. The number of new cases detected during 2012 was 232,857.<\/p>\n

Leprosy, also known as Hansen\u2019s disease, occurs among the poorest and most marginalized peoples. Children are particularly prone. While not very contagious, the leprosy bacterium is believed to be transmitted through respiratory droplets. It is curable with treatment but lost limbs do not regrow.
\nInitial infection displays no symptom and can remain undetected for between 5 and 20 years. It is a \u2018sleeper\u2019 illness stealthily establishing itself within the human body. Eventually, its presence is betrayed when a victim ceases to feel physical pain in one or more extremity such as fingers, toes, nose, ears. A loss of feeling can lead to repeated injury resulting in a loss of extremities. \u00a0Associated symptoms include overall weakness and poor eyesight. That leprosy is referred to in the Bible tells us that one or other of its forms has affected humanity for thousands of years.<\/p>\n

This Gospel speaks clearly to the peoples of leprosy-infected areas. Is there a message for Europe where the disease is almost unknown? Metaphorically speaking there is. We can draw a comparison between leprosy, a communicable contagion capable of living undetected within its host, and the corruption, increasingly being revealed, that has numbed the spiritual and allowed a substratum of evil to fester for decades within many levels of the institutional Church.<\/p>\n

It was the now newly canonized Pope John XXlll who in 1964 said: \u201cThe Church must shake off the dust the Empire\u201d. Announcing the calling of the Second Council of the Vatican, Pope John XXlll said: \u201cSurely it is high time, and surely it would be to everyone\u2019s advantage to \u2018shake off the dust of the Empire that has gathered since Constantine\u2019s day on the throne of St. Peter\u2019\u201d (Congar 1964:\u00a0 127). Fr Joseph Mattam SJ subsequently commented: \u201cThese words spoken by the great John XXIII will continue to challenge the Church leaders as long as they do not give up the ways\u00a0of Constantine\u2019s Roman Empire.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Emperor Constantine, Roman Emperor AD306 \u2013 337, became a Christian and, effectively, subsumed Christianity into his empire. His validation institutionalised the Church thereby distorting, infecting, the Church as founded by Jesus Christ. The Christian Church acquiesced in this new found release from hostile and violent persecution. To quote Joseph Mattam again: \u201cFrom around the 4th century Church leaders took on the ways of the Empire and those who were to be servants of the community began to be called and lived as Lords, Eminences, Excellencies, Holiness, etc. It is so shameful to look at these titles, forms of dress and the ways of life of the leaders of the Disciples of Christ, the foot-washing God. With the conversion of Constantine, and other emperors, the practices of the empire passed into the Church. One cannot plumb the evil that has entered the Church through Church leaders blindly following the pattern of the empire.\u201d Constantine honoured the pope and his court with an emperor\u2019s adornments and insignia, possibly from the best of motives.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis, in a relatively short time, is demonstrably furthering Pope St. John XXlll\u2019s call to \u201cshake off the dust\u2019. He has speeded up the dismantling of centuries of corrosive behaviour within the Church. Fr Mattam again: \u201cThis Pope gives me hope<\/em>\u201d is one of the stickers that are being sold. I am very grateful that he is beginning to lead the Church back to what Jesus wanted, both\u00a0by his teachings and example. In Evangelii Gaudium he says: \u201cwhen we speak of sacramental power we are in the realm of function, not that of dignity or holiness…our dignity derives from baptism, which is accessible to all. … In the Church, functions do not favour the\u00a0superiority of some vis-a-vis the others. Indeed, a woman, Mary is more important than the bishops\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last November Pope Francis was invited to address European Parliamentarians in Strasbourg. He described Europe as \u201c \u2026 giving the impression of being somewhat elderly and haggard with weariness and ageing like a grandmother, no longer fertile and vibrant\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis was inviting Europeans to journey with him, as he leads the Church, to Christ saying in the words of the leper in this Sunday\u2019s Gospel: “If you wish, you can make me clean.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6th Sunday of Ordinary Time (15.02.15) What Leprosy? \u201cA leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archdiocese-of-liverpool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7432"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7434,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7432\/revisions\/7434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}