Isolation and Re-Integration

​A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, February 11th, 2024:
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Leviticus
​13.1-2, 45-46
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The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: “When someone has on the skin of their body a swelling or an eruption or a spot, and it turns into a leprous disease on the skin of their body, that person shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests.

“Anyone who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of their head be dishevelled and shall cover their upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ That person shall remain unclean as long as the disease persists; and being unclean, such a one shall live alone with their dwelling outside the camp.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

It’s hard not to be sympathetic to the direction given to Moses and Aaron in this season. The Hebrews were still wandering in the desert when leprosy started to spread, putting their entire community at risk. This fledgling people, barely rescued from the clutches of slavery, couldn’t risk everyone falling ill. So a quarantine was put in place and protocols were developed. Diagnosis via the priests and exclusion of the sick party to protect the broader community. There was no known treatment, so isolation was required to protect others.

Now, with the benefit of time and much scientific study, leprosy can be diagnosed in a lab and treated with a multi-drug therapy, resulting in the patient being cured. Left untreated, leprosy can cause permanent disability. Isolation is not the answer—drawing near to that person and offering robust care is. As we reflect back, what was a matter of survival for the Hebrews is now the exact opposite of best practice. 

In the Gospel we will read this weekend, we see another approach to leprosy: the miraculous touch of Jesus. For Jesus, isolation is also not the answer. The direction God gave to Moses and Aaron does not apply to Him—He is healing itself. Through His hands, death is defeated and all sin and disease washed clean.

In this weekend’s second reading, in a letter from Paul to the people of Corinth, Paul invites us to be imitators of Christ. Modern leprosy treatments weren’t developed until the 1940s, but that didn’t stop Christians through the centuries from being Christ to those with leprosy. While exclusion from the greater community was still necessary to protect others before a cure was discovered, Christians communities still rose up to serve those living with leprosy. Leper colonies were built by saints on the principle of care and compassion. Even if the care could not yet cure, it was still of tremendous value to the person receiving it.

While leprosy isn’t entirely a thing of the past—more than 200,000 cases are reported worldwide every year—this Scripture is a good reminder of how Christ can transform any situation. While leprosy is a very specific illness, if we see it as an analogy for spiritual illness, we see the heart of Christ and how He reacts to us in our spiritual illness.

By seeing our sin as a spiritual illness, we are invited to accept His healing hands and let Him heal us. Even at our worst, He wants to bring us back into relationship, back into community, back into health. Sin separates us from others and from God, but Christ still reaches out His healing hands and draws us near. The isolation brought on by sin can be cured. We can be reintegrated into His heart.




Stéphanie Potter

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