Good
evening/morning.
My wife and I were over at the
Cathedral last Saturday for the Scouting awards ceremony. Boy scouts, girl scouts, cub scouts and
brownies – all there to receive Catholic religious awards that they had worked
very hard learning the faith to achieve.
We were there because our Godson and his brother were receiving the “Ad
Altare Dei” medal – meaning “to the altar of God.” Quite an award for a young man.
Bishop Matano was there to
distribute the medals, and he gave some brief closing remarks, including the
story of his own experience in scouting as a boy back in Providence RI. I was quite impressed that he was able,
without hesitation, 50 years or so after his youth, to recite the Boy Scout law,
which goes – “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous,
kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.” I wanted to go up to him and ask him if he
really remembered that or if he stayed up late Friday night studying it, but
hey, he’s the bishop, so I kept my mouth shut.
But given how quickly he rattled it off, I think he remembered it well.
Now the first ten adjectives of that
Boy Scout law didn’t surprise me - trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly,
courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful and thrifty. Sounds like a good description of a disciple
of Jesus, in fact! But the next word really
caught my attention, and it’s a word at the center of today’s Gospel – “clean.” A Scout is clean. The leper wanted to be clean. “Lord, if you wish it, you can make me clean.” “I do will it, be made clean.”
I think it caught my attention
because, face it, we live in a world that isn’t so “clean,” and in many ways it’s
not as clean as it was not too many years ago.
Certainly concerns about it being physically clean - the cleanliness of
our air, waters and earth - but I’m talking now about spiritual clean-ness. Not
that our world has ever been very clean, to be sure. But let’s talk about spiritual cleanness,
about spiritual leprosy, in our own lives.
Leprosy, in Jesus’ time, was a
catch-all for a host of different skin diseases, most quite contagious, and the
lepers were excluded from the community as the first reading from Leviticus
describes. But it was also thought to be
a punishment – a punishment for sin! And
so it was seen as much a spiritual condition as a physical condition.
Now very few people today, at least
in the civilized west, suffer from anything like the skin diseases then called
leprosy. But who doesn’t suffer from
some sort of spiritual leprosy? Some blotch of sin on the soul? Or some bad
habit, disordered passion or desire, or addiction?
Maybe it’s anger. Frustration that things, and people, or even
the way our lives are turning out, aren’t the way they’re supposed to be, not the
way I’d have them. Many of us live what
can only be described as angry, bitter lives, devoid of peace, of joy. Is that “clean?”
Or foul language – Our Lord says
that things that defile us come from within, and when a cuss word or swear word
comes out of me, especially in traffic, I have to stop and wonder “what is
going on inside of me that would come out with that ?” Is that clean?
Perhaps it’s a grudge. A long-simmering rift in a relationship that
ought to be close and loving. A
situation barren of lifegiving forgiveness and reconciliation. And is that clean?
Maybe it’s the love of money –
obsessing about money, grasping and clutching and failing to recognize that all
we have, all we’ll ever have, is God’s gift to us, entrusted to our
stewardship, entrusted to us to share.
I mentioned habits and addictions – could
be eating, or smoking, gambling, alcohol.
Whatever enslaves us and keeps us from true freedom.
The habit, or addiction, to
pornography is front and center in the news as a certain movie opened this Valentine’s
Day weekend. A movie that’s all the buzz of the secular media. A movie, and a book, that is said to be
objectively pornographic. Does anyone
think to ask – is that about romantic love?
Real intimacy? Does anyone even
stop to protest – “hey, that couple isn’t even married!”
But as “unclean” as that movie
appears to be, at least it’s honest about itself and out in the open. My sister was visiting a few weeks ago and
remarked about how much cleaner New York City is since she lived there, since
they’ve cleaned up Times Square of all its porn shops. I said that’s more the case that it’s readily
available these days with a click of the mouse.
I ask again – is that clean?
Brothers and sisters, we are coming
into the Holy season of Lent, and whatever our “un-clean-ness” is, and we all
have our own, we have these forty days to stop and examine our consciences, our
conduct, the way we think and act, and we have the chance to kneel before Our
Blessed Lord and beg Him- “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” And I assure you, He will be moved with pity,
moved with compassion, and He will give us His great grace, and wash us
clean.
If we bring our sinfulness before
Him, He stands ready with open arms of forgiveness. We Catholics are so blessed to have a special
Sacrament of healing and forgiveness, where if we kneel before Him, kneel
before His priest who listens “in persona Christi” – “in the person of Christ” –
we can hear with our own ears those most beautiful words – “I absolve you of
your sins.” Which is the same thing as “I
do will it – be made clean!” He will
forgive us, heal us, strengthen us, make us clean, make us Holy.
If only we ask, if only we beg – “Lord,
if you wish, you can make me clean.”
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