Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B

Reflecting on Mark 1: 40-45

I’ve had so many graced times in my life, but some of the most meaningful surround the hundreds of couples with whom I’ve worked to plan beautiful music for their weddings. The brides were all beautiful, it seems, but today’s gospel brings one straight back into my heart.

She was a blonde, blue-eyed southern beauty.  She worked out rigorously so as to wear that stunning size-two wedding dress. All of her friends sharing this day with her were equally gorgeous, equally starved, equally perfectly manicured and massaged and coiffed.

And on her wedding day this ebullient, lovely bride―in love with her groom and in love with Jesus― arrived with an oozing, raging fever blister on her upper lip. No make-up could hide it. No one could pretend it wasn’t there. Except, of course, this darling bride. She greeted each guest with the warmth and confidence of someone who knows she is loved totally, inside and out. She introduced her handsome groom around the room. He was as smitten and adoring as on any of their perfect, made-for-tv dates.

I’ll never forget her. She taught me, through her vulnerability, that our “leprosies” can challenge the perfection we think we’re presenting to the world. She seemed to understand this deep truth: we are loved― wildly, madly― anyway. The Bridegroom knows our deeper, hidden scars. The Healer wants to touch the raging cold sores in our souls. He wants to heal our resentments, our heartbreaks, our addictions.

Some leprosies erupt today and are gone tomorrow. But the real lesions are the ones we carry inside. So here’s the question: do we want to be healed? Oh yes, God, yes.  Would today be too soon?

Can you remember a time when a superficial disfigurement brought you to a deeper love of Christ?

Kathy McGovern ©2018

Ordinary Time - Cycle B