February 15, 2009: 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This weekend’s readings continue the general theme of last weekend: God’s path of blessing brings health and strength in the midst of a terribly sick world, but this weekend has a slightly different twist on that theme. “Leprosy” is the malady—a malady that, for reasons lost to us, rendered the sufferers unqualified for entrance into the Temple worship in Jerusalem. What isn’t told us is that this disease was generally believed to have had a specific “cause”: the evil tongue! Those who were cursed with this disease were believed to have brought it on themselves by what they said to or about others. In the time of Moses, the leper had to remain “outside the camp,” in other words he had to have a “time out” to figure out how important to him were the people he had been slandering with his tongue. In the Gospel, we see that the evil tongue is, indeed, hard to silence. The sufferer leaves Jesus healed, but still can’t keep his mouth shut! (This would have caused the audience in Jesus’ day to smile.) So, this weekend, we ask for the Grace to control our tongues! This ability is often considered to be the very “first step” of spiritual growth.