Gospel  MK 1:40-45
A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, 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.
Reflection:
A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him, 
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leper in today’s gospel was looked down upon by society. Because he was considered to be contagious, he was dependent on the mercy of others and reduced to begging to survive.
But, the leper had faith and confidence in the ability of Jesus Christ to help him. And, he had the humility to say, “If you wish, you can make me clean.”
“Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him, 
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
Things haven’t changed much. The poor we serve today have a lot in common with the leper who approached Jesus two thousand years ago.
They are often avoided as if their poverty might be contagious. With little education and few skills, the poor are often viewed as unemployable.
Like the leper in the gospel, they too are reduced to asking for help and becoming dependent upon the mercy of others to survive.
The poor say to us, “If you wish, you can help me.”
Are we, like Christ, “moved with pity?”
Can we, like Christ, stretch out our hand to help and to heal?
“Every day Christ comes to me in all His pitiful disguises.”
– – Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta