Mc 1,40-45 – Thursday of the First Week of Ordinary Time
«Then a leper came to him: he begged him on his knees and said: “If you want, you can heal me!”. Moved with compassion, he stretched out his hand, touched him and said: “I want it, get well!”. Jesus, who had made the firm resolution to no longer be held back by sick people seeking healing, finds himself faced with the desperation of this leper who he pleads with all his might.
Behind this man’s pain there is the desperation that very often appears even in the heart of a believer: is it possible that God doesn’t care about my suffering? This is why he prays to him in this way: not demanding a healing, but asking if He wants it, if He is interested in his pain, his suffering. And Jesus responds with conviction: «I am interested in your pain! I care about your suffering! I want it, get well! To all this Jesus also adds something else: the gesture of touching the leper.
In addition to being a forbidden gesture because it would automatically make him impure himself, touching a leper means exposing yourself to his illness, to contagion. Jesus is the only one who can enter into our darkness, our pain, our evil without letting himself be soiled by it. It’s a little as if we had all fallen into a puddle of mudand Jesus was the only one who did not hesitate to descend into that hole to get us out, knowing that his love is more powerful than any mud, any darkness, any contagion. With this gesture Jesus crosses the loneliness of this man and fills it with his presence.
We should think this every time we approach the Eucharist: none of us is worthy of letting Jesus enter so intimately within ourselves, yet He is the only one who can touch our wounded humanity without being trapped by it. Every time we receive Communion, the story of today’s Gospel is renewed: Jesus touches a desperate man and saves him.
Thursday 15 January 2026 – (Thursday of the First Week of Ordinary Time – Even Year)
