'If you choose, you can make me clean.' Sunday Reflections, 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Christ as Saviour, El Greco, c.1600

National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) 

Gospel Mark 1:40-45 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.  After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Dr Carlo Urbani with his wife Giuliana Chiorrini and their children

Towards the end of February 2003 Dr Carlo Urbani, an Italian, went to Vietnam, representing the World Health Organisation, to investigate an American businessman who was showing unusual symptoms. It turned out to be severe respiratory syndrome (SARS), a highly contagious virus. The man who discovered this new disease died from it himself about a month later on 29 March. In a conscious moment, while in the ICU in a hospital in Bangkok, he asked for a priest to give him the Last Rites.

Vladimir Redzioch of Inside the Vatican interviewed Giuliana Chiorrini, the widow of Dr Urbani. MISYON, the Columban magazine in the Philippines, published the interview, with permission, in its March-April 2004 issue. Here are extracts from the interview.

ITV: Your husband chose to work with the sick and poor around the world. Why?

Giuliana Chiorrini: Carlo was always involved in volunteer work and since his youth was attracted by the poor. He cultivated the desire to discover new horizons. To do this he left for Africa with the missionaries. Since his days as a young student with a backpack full of medicines, he had traveled in Africa (Mali, Niger, and Benin). Afterwards he work in solidarity camps run by the Xaverian Fathers, Catholic Action and Open Hands. He was always in contact with missionaries. As a doctor he wrote for the missionary magazine Missioni Consolata. Carlo also fulfilled his desire to help he poor during his 10 years working at the hospital in Macerata. This confirmed him in his work with Médecins Sans Frontières, of which he was the president, and in this capacity he received the Nobel Peace Prize when it was conferred on the organization in 1999.

ITV: What role did his faith play in his choice of life?

Chiorrini: Faith had an extremely important role in my husband’s life. Everything he did enriched the spiritual lives of the people who were in contact with him. He was also very sensitive to the beauty of creation - he even used to go hang-gliding to admire nature.

That year St John Paul II invited the family of Dr Urbani to carry the Cross during the Via Crucis on Good Friday, 18 April, in the Colosseum.

ITV: This year, during the Via Crucis at the Colosseum, you and your son carried the cross. How did you react when you heard you had been chosen by the Holy Father, and what significance did it have for your family to participate in this Good Friday liturgy?

Chiorrini: I am a believer, as was my husband, and knowing I was to carry the cross during the Via Crucis touched me a great deal, as well as giving me an enormous joy. It was a very intense moment of the interior spirituality and in all honesty it was also very moving, with the evocative atmosphere which was created that evening.

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If you choose, you can make me clean. Like Jesus, Dr Carlo Urbani chose and made many clean, sacrificing his own life in doing so.

San Roque/San Rocco/St Roch [Wikipedia, P. Lameiro]

Healing the sick was central to the mission of Jesus. And he often did things that others wouldn't do or might even condemn: Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” The First Reading shows us how strict were what we would now call 'quarantine laws' with regard to lepers. We can understand why they were so strict. We have seen something similar with the ongoing outbreak of Ebola. We saw it in 2003 when SARS was seen as a threat to the world.

Yet there have always been individuals, motivated by their faith in Jesus Christ, who have been prepared to take great risks in taking care of the sick, persons who say, like Jesus, I do choose, and who 'stretch out their hands and touch the sick'. Pope Francis uses striking images, one especially for priests: that they should be shepherds living with 'the smell of the sheep', shepherds in the midst of their flock . . . Another is that he sees the Church as a field hospital where wounds are healed.

The Church has always had those characteristics. One of the most popular saints in the Philippines, especially in the Visayas and Mindanao, is San Roque, a layman, who took care of persons with the plague. Like Jesus, he chose to put his life in danger and caught the disease, though he recovered, partly with the help of a neighbour's dog. 

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If you choose, you can make me clean. Like Jesus, San Roque chose and made many clean, suffering from the plague himself in doing so.

I learned about Father Damien of Molokai (1840 - 1889) from Sister Stanislaus in Stanhope Street, Dublin, nearly 70 years ago when I was in kindergarten, how he chose to live among the lepers of Molokai, Hawaii, despite the risks. Pope Beneidct XVI canonised him in 2009. Mahatma Gandhi found in Father Damien a source of inspiration and said: The political and journalistic world can boast of very few heroes who compare with Father Damien of Molokai. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, counts by the thousands those who after the example of Fr Damien have devoted themselves to the victims of leprosy. It is worthwhile to look for the sources of such heroism.

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If you choose, you can make me clean. Like Jesus, Father Damien chose and made many clean, becoming 'one of us', as one woman said in the video above, bringing hope to many, not only during his lifetime but more than 130 years later, and giving his life in doing so.

Vinicio Riva: I feel I can move ahead because the Lord is protecting me.

Let us thank God for the many people throughout the world, not all of them Christians, who knowingly put their lives in danger in serving others and for those who welcome persons not accepted by others.

Responsorial Psalm (Philippines, USA)

'People from all around would come to him'. Sunday Reflections, 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 1:40-45 (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

A leper came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees: 'If you want to' he said 'you can cure me.' Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. 'Of course I want to!' he said. 'Be cured!' And the leprosy left him at once and he was cured. Jesus immediately sent him away and sternly ordered him, 'Mind you say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering for your healing prescribed by Moses as evidence of your recovery.' The man went away, but then started talking about it freely and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. Even so, people from all around would come to him.

An Soiscéal Marcas 1:40-45 (Gaeilge, Irish)

San am sin tháinig lobhar chuig Íosa ag achainí air agus é ar a dhá ghlúin: “Más áil leat é,” ar seisean, “is féidir duit mé a ghlanadh.” Ghlac Íosa trua dó, shín amach a lámh agus bhain leis: “Is áil,” ar seisean leis, “glantar thú!” D’fhág an lobhra é láithreach agus glanadh é. Labhair Íosa go corraiceach leis agus chuir chun siúil é gan mhoill ag rá leis: “Ná habair focal le haon duine, féach, ach imigh leat agus taispeáin don sagart thú féin agus déan, de chionn do ghlanta, an ofráil a d’ordaigh Maois mar fhianaise dóibh.” Ní túisce a d’fhág an duine an láthair, áfach, ná bhí guth ard aige ag leathadh an scéil, ionas nach bhféadfadh Íosa dul isteach go hoscailte i gcathair feasta, ach fanacht lasmuigh sna háiteanna uaigneacha agus bhítí ag triall air as gach aird.

St Damien of Molokai 3 January 1840 – 15 April 1889



I remember Noel McMahon’s first day at school more than 60 years ago when he was four and I around six. Noel lived across from us on our street of terraced houses in Dublin and was starting school in St Gabriel’s, the parish kindergarten and primary school that was three or four minutes’ walk away and where his uncle, Gerry O'Mahony, who had been at school with my father, was teaching. I’m not sure why his mother didn’t go with him. Maybe it was Noel's second day at school - memory isn't always sharp more than 60 years after an event! - and perhaps she couldn’t cope with his lack of enthusiasm for academic pursuits, a lack he shared with many another child. Mr Miller, who lived four doors up from us, came to the rescue. He was retired, and bald. He shook his fist at young Noel and told him to be on his way. The youngster, terrified, did go on his way, but in the Shakesperean manner, ‘creeping like snail, unwillingly, to school’. Each time he looked back before he reached the corner at the top of the street he could see Mr Miller’s raised fist.

Mr Miller’s action was what we call here in the Philippines ‘drama-drama’. He was the kindliest of men and was trying to help Mrs McMahon in her predicament. Mr McMahon was already at work. And I don’t think the whole business had any traumatic affect on Noel.

Fr Damien de Veuster SsCc before he set off for Molokai

Reading today’s gospel brought that incident to mind. Most of the translations in English use the word ‘stern’ or ‘sternly’ about the way Jesus spoke to the man after he had healed him of his leprosy, while ordering him not to tell anyone except the priest what had happened. Monsignor Ronald Knox’s translation reads, ‘He spoke to him threateningly, and sent him away there and then’. The Irish translation ‘Labhair Íosa go corraiceach leis’  means ‘Jesus spoke to him roughly’

There’s no getting around it. Jesus spoke harshly to the man he had just healed. But was he really being harsh? Did he really expect that the man, full of gratitude, wouldn’t tell others what had happened? Did he really think that nobody would ask the man how he was cured?

Father Damien with the Kalawao Girls' Choir, 1870s.

I’m inclined to think that Jesus was behaving like my neighbour Mr Miller all those years ago, that his harsh words were ‘drama-drama’. But I am also inclined to think that, at the human level, Jesus dreaded the consequences of his action and that he was trying to protect himself. He could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. Even so, people from all around would come to him. Every time Jesus healed someone he gave of himself. He never stopped this giving of self. His ultimate giving of self was on the cross when, as St Mark tells us, he cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Father Damien on his deathbed.

I didn’t go to the same school as Noel but to Stanhope Street, the local convent school, also in the parish, run by the Irish Sisters of Charity. Sr Stanislaus, the principal of the boys’ kindergarten, often spoke to us about two priests who had totally given themselves to those they served. One was an Irish Jesuit, Fr Willie Doyle SJ, killed near Ieper/Ypres, Belgium, in 1917 in the Great War. Father Doyle died about 100 kms west of Tremolo, Belgium, where the other priest was born in 1840, Fr Damien de Veuster SsCc, now St Damien of Molokai.

After his death, Mother Marianne Cope to the right.

Father Damien, baptised ‘Josef’ and known as ‘Jef’ to his family, was assigned to Hawaii. At the time a remote part of the island of Molokai was used as a colony for those with leprosy, since the authorities were trying to prevent the spread of the disease. They had no priest. The bishop didn’t want to order any priest to go there as this would be seen as a death sentence. However, four volunteered and the plan was that they would follow a rotation system. Father Damien was the first to go, in 1873, and later decided to stay there. His presence made a huge difference, at every level. He wrote to his brother, also a priest, . . . I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ. In December 1884 Father Damien discovered that he had leprosy and died less than five years later.

Statue of Father Damien outside Hawaii State Building

We know a lot more about leprosy, or Hansen’s Disease, today than in the time of Father Damien. He very deliberately chose to serve a community cut off from the wider community, knowing that he could very easily acquire their illness. Jesus had stretched out his hand to the leper, something that probably nobody else would have done and that would have made him ritually ‘unclean’. His disciple, Father Damien, went even further. He chose to live with lepers, to treat them, to help them build decent houses, to celebrate Mass with them, to hear their confessions, to prepare them for a happy death, to help dig graves for them.

There have always been individuals in every part of the world who have chosen to follow Jesus to the fullest extent possible in serving others, especially those on the margins. This is a characteristic of the Christian life. And there are people on the margins in every society.

Send us a priest who will call us by name, who will be a father to us.