by Fr. Tommy Lane
Jesus cured the man with the skin disease. Jesus did not cause his disease or give him his disease. Jesus cured his disease. Yet when something bad happens, some people blame God. God did not cause the bad thing to happen. Of course it is only natural to ask questions and wonder where God is in all of this. Trials and sufferings certainly test our faith, but the best way out of something bad is with God. Go to God with the questions and suffering. The leper went to Jesus and was cured.
Blaming God is not facing up to the complexities of what is involved. Suffering comes the way of everyone. Surely, we can see that suffering is sometimes caused by others or by ourselves, and sometimes is not the direct fault of anyone. If we keep going down a layer, and down a layer, to get to the root of it all, if we admit it, suffering comes from the devil. The early chapters in Genesis want us to know that there was beautiful peace in Eden before the devil tempted Adam and Eve (Gen 1-3). When they submitted to the devil’s temptation, then everything began to unravel piece by piece after that. As we read the Gospels, we see that Satan tried to get to Jesus not only while Jesus was fasting in the desert but many times afterwards during his years of public ministry. Instead of blaming God when bad things happen, blame the devil who is the real cause of them. Jesus cured the man with the skin disease. Jesus did not cause his disease or give him his disease. Jesus cured his disease.
Some may have to wait a long time for a resolution to suffering or there may be no resolution to some suffering but one possibility for those who suffer and have not still found an answer or have not moved on or found resolution is to go to Our Lady and present this suffering to her asking her to unite it with the suffering of Jesus on the cross for the salvation of the world. In that way, the suffering is not going waste, so to speak. In the midst of suffering when there is no answer and we do not understand what is going on, it is at least a consolation that we are giving the suffering to Our Lady to be united with Jesus’ sufferings for the salvation of the world. That is a glimmer of hope in the midst of suffering and trials when we still do not understand what is going on. It makes sense to present our sufferings to Mary because she was always united with Jesus and when Jesus was on the cross, we can imagine she joined in offering Jesus to the Father on our behalf for our salvation. She was not standing there being sorrowful but joining in Jesus’ offering of himself to the Father for us.
We know no more about the leper than what we hear in today’s Gospel, but he may very well have been living with other lepers in some kind of small leper colony near the town Jesus visited. If he were in some kind of leper colony, it seems he is the only one of those lepers who went to Jesus. The others stayed where they were. When suffering comes, everyone has a choice. It would be easier and require little or no effort to stay where one is, but overcoming suffering involves making a journey from complaining or blaming God to finding peace and growing to become a new and better person. After some time of going around in endless circles going nowhere, or endless circles of trying to blame, it is time to move on to the next stage. Instead of “Why? Why? Why?” the question now is “How do I go forward?” “How do I grow through this to become a new and better person?” “How do I rebuild my life?” The important thing is loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now we see that suffering is a call to deeper faith and to hope.
Our greatest hope when suffering is to look on Jesus on the cross. He was innocent and suffered for us, giving his body and blood in exchange for our sins. Knowing that Jesus, God made man, suffered like that for love of us, gives us the hope and strength and courage to persevere, to move on and go forward. Jesus was crucified and died but rose, and we ask Jesus on the cross to help us rise above our sufferings to share in his resurrection.
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2024
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for the Sixth Sunday of Year B
Jesus became like a leper for us all 2021
We are called to live community forming one body
Related Homilies: Father Damien in the leper colony on Molokai