News - February 2018 RSS Feed

Short and to the point. The Evangelist Mark tells us in today’s Gospel that immediately following His Baptism, Jesus was driven to the desert and after that emerged proclaiming the gospel of God, urging all who could hear to repent and believe, because the kingdom of God is at hand. Those mere 65 words or so reveal God’s abundant mercy even more specifically and profoundly than the rainbow covenant of everlasting preservation that God made with Noah after the flood, recounted in today’s First Reading.

The real tragedy is that the whole thing began with a false premise. Namely, that leprosy is a manifestation of divine punishment for an offense against God. Thus, the logic flowed, the sinner should be excluded from worship. Leprosy’s contagiousness only increased the distancing and boundaries, forcing lepers into isolation, forcing them to wear a bell around their neck when they came close to non-infected others. But can we catch divine punishment for a loving gesture? The fallacious premise justified and compounded everyone’s suffering.

Determining our purpose in life answers one of the key questions we pose to ourselves. It’s not something we ask every day; it may be something we avoid or struggle with. It most often nags us when we are least sure of the answer. Yet today’s readings offer three individuals who dealt with this existential challenge with great awareness and determination. Each can illuminate our quest to recognize and live our purpose fully.