Someone recently suggested that one of the best ways to understand the history of America is to see it as a kind of “leper colony.” Think about these examples from different points in our history. The Puritans who fled England to practice their faith were “lepers” to the hard-liners in the Church of England. The Irish immigrants, mostly Catholic, were the “lepers” to those of English Protestant heritage. The Eastern European immigrants were the “lepers” to the Western Europeans. Wave after wave of immigrants to this land prove the same over and over again.
Our more recent history confirms that leprosy, as much as ever, continues to be a “skin disease.” It lets us single out others and be fearful, for example, of whatever color of skin is different from our own: black skin, white skin, brown skin, yellow skin, red skin. In a sense, within each of us are “germs” (our own weaknesses, our hatreds, our obsessions, and our fears) which constitute our own form of “leprosy.” Do we appreciate how debilitating is the prejudice which rises from our fear of others and of ourselves, and by which we project onto others what we most fear or dislike in ourselves?
This Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 1, 40-45) invites us to embrace compassion and understanding as among the virtues most needed in our world: they make the love and concern of God a tangible reality for us and for others, whose lives we can touch by such God-given goodness.
Are you familiar with this old proverb? “People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Who will be on the receiving end of our care and compassion this weekend?
