According to Leviticus, the leper had to proclaim his illness aloud and be alone outside the camp. Jesus breaks these rules. He lets himself be approached by the leper, he touches him himself, telling him: “I want it, be purified”. Jesus responds to the request of the leper, but at the same time reveals that his will is not only the will to heal the sick, but to re-establish with him that relationship that the Law prevented. Touching the sick, Jesus contracts his own impurity. He takes it upon himself, enters into communion with the leper, takes his place in some way. In fact, he “he could no longer publicly enter a city, but he remained outside, in deserted places.” Now it is he who, like a leper, has to stay in the desert. “If you want you can…”. Jesus not only wants, not only can, but shows what his true will is and his true power: that of love and compassion, which, in addition to sickness, overcome that most radical evil that makes our heart impure: loneliness, selfishness, closure in oneself, the distance of prejudice … “Become my imitators, as I am of Christ”, Paul writes to the Corinthians. It is precisely this love and compassion that we must imitate, taking upon ourselves that logic of the Kingdom which consists in seeking “not my interest, but that of many, so that they may reach salvation”.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey