I Do Will It!
February 12, 2012
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Alexander Kim, LC
Mark 1:40-45
A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, "If you wish, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, "I do will it. Be made clean." The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean. Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once. Then he said to him, "See that you tell no one anything, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them." The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere.
Introductory Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for letting me begin this week contemplating Your infinite mercy and love for me. I need Your healing touch to become the saint You created me to be. I know You want to heal me because You gave me the gift of my faith: to know and love You and experience the intense joy in following You.
Petition: Lord, I want to be made clean. Touch my heart and heal me with your merciful love.
1. In Need of Healing: Like the leper in this Gospel, I, too, am in need of healing. He came humbly, as a beggar, for he had no way of repaying Jesus for such a great act of kindness. But his humility was founded on faith. Confident in the scriptural passage, “Do not reject a suppliant in distress, or turn your face away from the poor” (Sirach 4:4), he insisted reverently. He had no doubt that Jesus could cure him, that Jesus would take interest in an insignificant and anonymous leper. He was asking Our Lord for a miracle, and he knew Jesus would grant it. He also knew that he did not deserve or merit such a gesture of mercy. Even if Jesus refused his plea, he was ready to accept it.
2. Moved with Pity: Jesus was moved with pity. He stretched out his hand to touch the leper, revealing God the Father’s will in a tender way: “I do will it. Be made clean.” Jesus was moved more by the leper’s humble faith than by his leprosy. The leper’s plea struck at the very core of the mission of the Redeemer. Jesus desires nothing more than to remove sin and its effect in us. Jesus “came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15) and said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). The gesture of charity towards the leper foreshadows Christ’s redemptive death for all mankind. Jesus wants to reach out to touch our heart and heal us, too. We believe this to be true. All we need to do is let him, approaching him with humility and exercising our faith.
3. Changed Forever: The encounter with Jesus changed the leper’s life forever. Rather than an encounter with love, it was an encounter of love. Every encounter requires someone’s initiative. Although the leper is the one to approach Jesus, is it not Jesus who first makes himself accessible? In the same way, Jesus had initiated the encounter with his first disciples when he walked along the shores of Lake Tiberius, allowing Andrew and John to ask, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” (John 1:38). Lord Jesus, you enter into my life because you want to show me the way to everlasting life with you. Is it not you, kind and gentle Lord, who invites me: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)?
Conversation with Christ: Lord Jesus, You are so merciful to me! Thank You for loving me so much. How anxiously You wait to fill me with Your love, to heal me from the leprosy of my sins. Help me to be open to Your embrace of healing love, confident that each time I kneel before You to beg Your forgiveness, You will be moved with pity to touch me and make me clean.
Resolution: Today, I will imitate God’s merciful love in my own life with everyone with whom I enter into contact: family, fellow employees, friends.
Excerpts from the DIARY of Saint Faustina Kowalska
50 + I desire that priests proclaim this great mercy of Mine towards souls of sinners. Let the sinner not be afraid to approach Me. The flames of mercy are burning Me - clamoring to be spent; I want to pour them out upon these souls.
186 +Today Jesus said to me, I desire that you know more profoundly the love that burns in My Heart for souls, and you will understand this when you meditate upon My Passion. Call upon My mercy on behalf of sinners; I desire their salvation. When you say this prayer, with a contrite heart and with faith on behalf of some sinner, I will give him the grace of conversion. This is the prayer:
187 "O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You."
188 During the last days of the carnival, when I was making a Holy Hour, I saw how the Lord Jesus suffered as He was being scourged. Oh, such an inconceivable agony! How terribly Jesus suffered during the scourging! O poor sinners, on the day of judgment how will you face the Jesus whom you are now torturing so cruelly? His blood flowed to the ground, and in some places His flesh started to fall off. I saw a few bare bones on His back. The meek Jesus moaned softly and sighed.
187 "O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You."
188 During the last days of the carnival, when I was making a Holy Hour, I saw how the Lord Jesus suffered as He was being scourged. Oh, such an inconceivable agony! How terribly Jesus suffered during the scourging! O poor sinners, on the day of judgment how will you face the Jesus whom you are now torturing so cruelly? His blood flowed to the ground, and in some places His flesh started to fall off. I saw a few bare bones on His back. The meek Jesus moaned softly and sighed.
206 The next day, after Communion, I heard the voice saying, My daughter, look into the abyss of My mercy and give praise and glory to this mercy of Mine. Do it in this way: Gather all sinners from the entire world and immerse them in the abyss of My mercy. I want to give Myself to souls; I yearn for souls, My daughter. On the day of My feast, the Feast of Mercy, you will go through the whole world and bring fainting souls to the spring of My mercy. I shall heal and strengthen them.
1074 When I went for adoration, I heard these words: My beloved daughter, write down these words, that today My Heart has rested in this convent [the Cracow house]. Tell the world about My mercy and My love.
The flames of mercy are burning me. I desire to pour them out upon human souls. Oh, what pain they cause Me when they do not want to accept them!
My daughter, do whatever is within your power to spread devotion to My mercy. I will make up for what you lack. Tell aching mankind to snuggle close to My merciful Heart, and I will fill it -with peace.
Tell [all people], My daughter, that I am Love and Mercy itself. When a soul approaches Me with trust, I fill it with such an abundance of graces that it cannot contain them within itself, but radiates them to other souls.
The flames of mercy are burning me. I desire to pour them out upon human souls. Oh, what pain they cause Me when they do not want to accept them!
My daughter, do whatever is within your power to spread devotion to My mercy. I will make up for what you lack. Tell aching mankind to snuggle close to My merciful Heart, and I will fill it -with peace.
Tell [all people], My daughter, that I am Love and Mercy itself. When a soul approaches Me with trust, I fill it with such an abundance of graces that it cannot contain them within itself, but radiates them to other souls.
1075 Souls who spread the honor of My mercy I shield through their entire lives as a tender mother her infant, and at the hour of death I will not be a Judge for them, but the Merciful Savior. At that last hour, a soul has nothing with which to defend itself except My mercy. Happy is the soul that during its lifetime immersed itself in the Fountain of Mercy, because justice will have no hold on it.
1076 Write this: Everything that exists is enclosed in the bowels of My mercy, more deeply than an infant in its mother's womb. How painfully distrust of My goodness wounds Me! Sins of distrust wound Me most painfully
1076 Write this: Everything that exists is enclosed in the bowels of My mercy, more deeply than an infant in its mother's womb. How painfully distrust of My goodness wounds Me! Sins of distrust wound Me most painfully
1273 Jesus: My daughter, do you think you have written enough about My mercy? What you have written is but a drop compared to the ocean. I am Love and Mercy itself. There is no misery that could be a match for My mercy, neither will misery exhaust it, because as it is being granted-it increases. The soul that trusts in My mercy is most fortunate, because I myself take care of it.
(Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska Notebook-I-50, 187-188, 206)
(Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska Notebook-III-1074-1076)
(Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska Notebook-IV-1273)
http://www.saint-faustina.com/Diary/DMIMS10.shtml
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