Thursday, January 13 : Saint Paul VI

The loving gesture of Jesus, who goes up to lepers to comfort and heal them, has its full and mysterious expression in his Passion. Tortured and disfigured by his bloody sweat, scourging, crowning with thorns and crucifixion, abandoned by those who forgot his good deeds, Jesus is identified with lepers in his Passion. He becomes both their image and their symbol, as the prophet Isaiah intuited when he contemplated the mystery of the Servant of the Lord: “There was in him no beauty nor appearance. (…) He was despised and rejected by men and as one from whom others hide their faces. (…) And we, we accounted him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted” (Is 53:2-4). Yet it is precisely from the wounds on the tortured body of Jesus and from the power of his resurrection that life and hope spring up for all those who are struck down by evil and infirmity. The Church has always been faithful to its mission of proclaiming the word of Christ, united to concrete acts of mercy showing solidarity towards the humblest and least. Throughout the centuries there has been a crescendo of stunning and exceptional devotion on behalf of those struck down by what are, humanly speaking, the most repulsive of illnesses. History clearly brings to light the fact that christians have been the first to become involved in the problem of lepers. Christ’s example led the way. He bore much fruit in selfless deeds of solidarity, devotion, generosity and charity.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team