I am sure that today’s gospel story is familiar to many of us and yet the beauty of the scriptures is that each time we revisit them, we have the opportunity to appreciate more of Jesus’ ministry and our personal response to it. Unlike most of the other miracle stories in the gospels, this one has no audience to witness the miracle. The leper would have been outcast and banished to an area outside the village. When he approached Jesus to ask for healing, he was breaking the strict religious purity laws of Judaism. In Jesus touching the leper he, too, was breaking these same laws. Why? Perhaps it was because he was ‘moved with pity’ (verse 41). This pity drove Jesus to heal the leper.

Like all miracles that Jesus performed, it was not just about a physical healing. The leper was now able to reintegrate into the social, cultural and religious life of the Jews – see his family again, barter at the marketplace, go to the village synagogue and offer sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem. And yet this healing did much more. It turned him into an evangelist! Even though Jesus told him not to tell anyone what had happened, it was too wonderful an event to keep to himself and he told everyone.

God moments in our daily lives are frequent if we have hearts of faith to recognise them. Do we share with others the good things that God does for us each day? Can we be evangelists of the Good News in 2025 like the leper?

by Michael Bruynesteyn