Welcome to our day of the reflection for this Monday, March 9th.
And today we hear the story of the lepranaman, the serian who gets healed by Elisha the
And Jesus prefers this story in the gospel reading today.
So he goes back to that story.
Why does the church give us this story during Lent?
It's because Lent is a time for the Catechumans and every church, we have a group of Catechumans
getting ready to enter the church on Easter Sunday.
And one of the exciting things for a lot of new converts and those who especially who are
new to Christianity, sometimes if they might already be baptized, especially a Protestant
But if they had no Christian background, they will be baptized at the Easter vigil.
And so one of the things that Holy Mother Church does during Lent is tells the story, gives
us readings that prepare the Catechumans for this mystery of being baptized.
And that's what the lesson is.
And that's the purpose of this story of name and to show here's this lepranaman.
And he's expecting something complex, something intricate, something really special for him
to be healed of his leprosy.
And the prophet Alicia doesn't even go down with him to the Jordan River.
He says, go down to the Jordan River and wash in the Jordan.
And it's pretty simple.
And name and his upset, his angry, and his men have to reason with him.
Look, if the prophet told you to do something complex and difficult, wouldn't you do it?
You've come all this way and he's like, just wash in the Jordan River and that's going
And he's like, the Jordan is this muddy, simple river.
I've got big, beautiful rivers like the Tigris and the Euphrates that are bigger and more
But here God is showing that he works through the simple and the humble.
And that's what he does.
God uses simple means.
We think of the complex as being more sophisticated and therefore more potent.
And God sees the humble and the simple and those are the means by which he brings his
It'll be through the simple waters of baptism with the simple, trinitarian formula that
he will cleanse us, not of leprosy, but as something far more deadly than that is our
He will wash our souls clean.
And so that's how God works and all this acriments.
With simple things, the anointing of oil or the simple bread and wine, he will use the
simple to bring about a transfiguration, a transformation of our being.
It's really quite remarkable how God works.
And we should reflect on that today and the reins that we have, that God wants to transform
And this is a beautiful thing that to prepare the can of humans, but also to remind us
who are already baptized of the power and potency of what God has given us in the church
and in the sacraments.
May the Lord bless and keep you.
Lent is a season known for what we give up.
But of course we give up in order to get closer to God, to get God, to receive his grace.
And so all of our prayers, fasting, almsgiving, all these things are done to draw us ever closer
to the heart of Christ and to our heavenly Father.
And so as you enter into this season of lent and in your prayers, think about how you can
give to the gustsuit as part of your almsgiving, this lent and season help us to help Catholics
understand, live and share their faith.
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