In seminary each year, each of the seminarians in our diocese are given an apostolate—we are sent outside the seminary walls—to engage in some form of holy work. Each week, the seminarians would go to different sites throughout the diocese to engage in ministry to the sick, hungry, lonely, or poor; we’d visit residents at the Catholic nursing homes or homes for the mentally or physically challenged, and hospital, we’d assist at the Ozanam Center of West Side Catholic Center, or Teaching RCIA or Adult Faith Formation in parishes, we might work with Parish Youth Groups. The holy work was of course good in itself, but it would also provide experience for our future priestly ministry.
Well, my first year of seminary, I was paired with another seminarian, who is now a very good friend of mine and brother priest, Father Jared Orndorff, pastor of St. Joe’s in Cuyahoga Fall, and we were assigned to minister to the inmates at the Cuyahoga County Jail under the supervision of Fr. Neil Walters and Deacon Tom Send. Each week we would answer requests the inmates made to the chaplain’s office for rosaries, bibles, and prayer books, we’d take note for Father for requests for the Sacraments, and we’d accompany Father Neil to the prison cell blocks and occasionally even sit down and talk with the prisoner.
It was sometimes a bit intimidating to walk free through the jail hallways. But in the short conversations we’d have with the inmates when handing them a bible or a rosary, or going to pray with them, we knew we were doing to the Lord’s good work—bringing a bit of the Lord’s goodness and love into the lives of others. “When I was in prison, you visited me.”
This weekend’s first reading reminded me of an occasion at the Jail, when we were accompanying Father Neil to the cell blocks, and as we were leaving an inmate calls out to Father, maybe a bit like the leper in today’s Gospel. He comes up to us, and says, “father, can you please take a look at this”, and he lifts up his pant leg to reveal a pretty nasty skin condition. Father took a glance at the sores and wounds, nodded, and laid hands on the inmate, blessed him, and we left.
What was that all about, we asked Fr. Neil. And he referenced today’s first reading. “If anyone has on his skin a scab or pustule or blotch, he shall be brought to the priest. The inmate must have been reading Leviticus”. In those ancient days, the Levitical priests had this responsibility of diagnosing leprosy. The priests, learned in the law, was tasked with this duty in order to preserve the health of the community. That there are these laws about public health in God’s inspired word, reminds of us God’s care for the health and integrity of his people. Having diagnosed leprosy the leper was then required by the law to quarantine outside of the common dwelling areas, again to preserve public health. We understand this quite well, don’t we, due to the events of the past year?
Now, we, as Christians, are not bound by this precept of Levitical law to show your skin conditions to the priest. But this reading certainly contains some lessons and foreshadowing’s for the life of the Church. Firstly, we do not show our skin pustules and blotches to the ordained priests, but Church law certainly requires us to bring our mortal sins to the priest in the Sacrament of Confession.
Secondly, we’ve seen this last year Church leaders continue this practical care the physical health of the Church. Almost a year ago now, the bishops relieved us of our obligation to attend Sunday mass due to the virus, and after reopening the churches, the bishops continued to prescribe that those showing flu like symptoms should remain home out of care for others, and that masks be worn to stop the spread of the disease. As attendance at mass is deemed safer and safer by our Church leaders, it is likely we will soon see a reinstitution of the mass obligation. For example, the Archdiocese of Detroit has alraedy announced that the obligation will go back in effect for the faithful of Detroit on March 14.
I was deeply impressed with Detroit Archbishop Vigneron’s letter to the archdiocese because he balances pastoral sensitivity for people’s health with a real religious sense for the reasons why mass attendance is so important. He writes, “God did not come to us virtually. He came to us—and continues to come to us—in the flesh. As Catholics, unmediated contact with the Real presence of the flesh and blood of Our Lord in offering [the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass] to the Father is irreplaceable and essential”. Again, he says, for anyone who needs to refrain from attending Mass for medical reasons, the obligation will not be binding, but for those who are able to attend Mass, the obligation will again be in effect.
I don’t know the future, but I think we’re likely to see a similar policy here in Cleveland in the next month or two, and for the same theologically sound reasons the Archbishop raises: Real encounter with the Lord Jesus in the Sacraments is an irreplaceable and essential element of our faith.
In the Gospel this weekend, we see the leper, approaching the Lord, and the Lord reaches out his hands to the leper and touches him. That Physical contact with the Lord Jesus, in the Gospel today, that real, not virtual, but real encounter with the Lord who pronounces the leper clean, is a foreshadowing of what happens in the confessional and what happens at holy mass, and in all the Sacraments of the Church.
While livestreaming mass has made it possible for us to remember our connection to the prayer life of our parishes, there is an ontological difference between watching mass on television or internet and the real sacramental encounter. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, for so many of you have desired that real encounter, and came back to church as soon as possible, and many of you who are still unable to come to mass, have shared with me how much you miss it.
For we know, don’t we, that something happens here that doesn’t happen anywhere else. We gaze upon the Lord in his Holy sanctuary. We kneel before the Lord, acknowledging our sins and our challenges and crosses and difficulties, and he extends his hands to us and touches us, touches our lives, blesses us and strengthens us. He pronounces us in the confessional forgiven of our sins. And in the valid reception of the Eucharist he deems us in holy communion, in right relationship with God.
And that maskless, physical contact with others, it’s part of healthy normal human communication, and showing of affection, and comforting others. Shaking hands as a greeting, or agreement, or making peace with a brother. Serving a meal to a hungry stranger. These physical actions and connections are so important for the Gospel. For as members of the body of Christ we are to be that hand extended to the leper, the hand laid upon the leper.
But we’re not quite entirely back to normal yet, for as you may have read in last week’s bulletin, our practice for ash Wednesday this week will be a little bit different than in recent decades. As you come forward for ashes on ash Wednesday, the Bishops of the United States, following the instruction of the Pope in Rome, have mandated that instead of marking each forehead with a cross, the priest will sprinkle ashes on the head of each person without saying anything and avoiding physical contact. Though, this involves a change from longstanding tradition in the United States, the distribution by sprinkling rather than tracing the sign of the cross is a common practice in nearly every other country around the world.
We will however continue our Lenten tradition of offering stations of the cross each Friday at 7pm here in the Church, and I encourage you all to make a good Lenten confession sometime this season. In addition to the normal confession schedule of Saturdays from 3-4, Sundays from 10 to 10:45 and Mondays from 4:45 to 5:15, I will have three hours of confession the evening of March 24. This is in lieu of the diocesan evening of confession which has been cancelled. But I’ll be here for you, dear parishioners.
As we prepare for the holy season of Lent, let us consider how the Lord desires to draw near to us through our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and wishing to extend his hands to the lepers of our own day, through us for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
