Intercessions ~ Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Hurricane Hunter Aircraft ~ Inside Dorian

This week,/ Pope Francis is traveling as an Apostle of Peace to the beautiful but troubled countries of Mozambique,/ Madagascar and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean./ May his visits bring about healing and a restoration of hope./ We pray to the Lord.

Last week/ in Odessa, Texas,/ a gunman took the lives of seven people and injured twenty-two,/ including a seventeen month old baby girl./ For our nation to learn the mind of God./ We pray to the Lord.

Hurricane Dorian has caused unthinkable destruction through the Bahamas and along the nation's eastern coastline./ We pray for those who are enduring great suffering./ For the many who help with rescue and recovery efforts./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for students,/ teachers and staff as school resumes./ For the safety and well-being of all this academic year./ May we be life-time learners,/ evolving humanly as God has intended./ We pray to the Lord.

May our President,/ the members of Congress and leaders in every place,/ be wise persons,/ skilled in uniting people where there's division,/ including and lifting up those left behind./ We pray to the Lord.

For the safety and health of our families/ and  families around the world,/ where there is weakness,/ sickness,/ disorder or fragmentation./ We pray to the Lord.

September 1st marked the start of the Second World War 80 years ago,/ which over six years claimed the lives of 56 million people./ May we learn to be instruments of peace./ We pray to the Lord.

Tre Nonne

Here are three classic Italian grandmothers (tre nonne) - Nicolina, Vincenza and Maria. They live in Campoli del Monte Taburno in Southern Italy. This photograph of the three friends finds them sitting at the welcoming center for migrant people who have made the desperate crossing from Africa across the Mediterranean Sea. It is considered the most dangerous crossing in the world.

Hundreds upon hundreds have died at sea, fleeing the awfulness of life in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan and beyond. So these are African babies the ladies are holding. One is enjoying a piece of Italian bread, one is looking around checking things out, the other is snoozing. 

Power is dangerous stuff. Power can create or protect criminality. Power can degrade persons and the physical world. Power can have blood on its hands. But here is the power of love - three elderly ladies holding survivor babies who have come from "across the sea." 

"I can't do everything, but I can do something," Saint Francis of Assisi said. Someone might shout to the ladies to send the babies back to Libya: "No room here," even though Italy's birthrate is so low there are ancient towns and villages being abandoned. We might wonder what the three ladies would say to the world if they were offered the podium at the United Nations. Mother Teresa of Calcutta delivered her simple but direct message there in October of 1985: Leave no one behind.

Maybe the venerable grandmas would just remind the world of the words of Jesus: "I was a stranger and you welcomed me," (Matthew 25:36) There don't seem to be any "ifs, ands or buts" attached to those words. No reservations, no restrictions, no excuses. Jesus' words may take us down into a very deep interior place of fear. 

If I feel an argument coming on, I need to take it to Jesus, not the ladies; not the priest.

The Compassionate Christ Cures Leprosy

12 While he was in one of the towns, Jesus came upon a man who was a mass of leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he prostrated himself before him and begged, "If you want to Lord, you can make me clean." 13 Jesus stretched out his hand, placed it on the leper, saying,  "Certainly I want to. Be clean!" 14 Immediately the leprosy left him and Jesus warned him not to tell anybody, but to go and show himself to the priest and to make the offerings for his recovery which Moses prescribed, as evidence to the authorities. 15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, and enormous crowds collected to hear Jesus and to be healed of their complaints. 16 But he slipped quietly away to deserted places for prayer.  Luke 5:12-16

This painted image, illuminating a Gospel page, was created in the second half of the 12th century. It deserves our attention before we reflect on the Gospel Word. "What the Word of God does for the ear, the icon does for the eye." 

This poor leprous fellow is an image of persons who are utterly pushed aside. Notice he lives in a desolate place, among the weeds dust and stones. He is one of the excluded, of whom people say, "We wish they'd just go away." There's not a little of that sentiment in the world. The man owns nothing except his flimsy stick and the rag in which he's wrapped himself to cover his nakedness. 

The disease has so wasted him he can no longer stand upright. The Gospel verse says he was a mass of leprosy. His head is bowed towards the ground because he knows, as far as the community was concerned, he's beyond help. He's not to be seen, heard, talked to or touched. Maybe he's picked up his head here in response to the touch of Jesus who's already got him by the wrist. 

Jesus holds the scroll of his teaching in his left hand, almost buried in his robe. It's not the teaching that first matters, but the touch. Do I understand this?

Verse 12: The description is stark, "a mass of leprosy" - as if there is nothing left of the walking dead man - the disease has devoured him. Still, he presents himself to Jesus most courteously, "If you want to Lord..." He uses the post Resurrection word, Lord, in addressing Jesus. The word clean refers to his spiritual/religious condition. If he's clean, he's fit to worship again with the community. 

Verse 13: The word certainly or of course - how eager Jesus is to heal the man. He doesn't procratinate. He doesn't say, Let me think about the religious ramifications of helping you.

Verse 14: Jesus warns the man not to talk about the miracle. He knows people will follow him as a result just because they want something. There are religious people like that - like the family that insists on having a priest at the graveside of the deceased person who hasn't been in a church since his First Communion. 

Then Jesus tells the cured man to make the required offerings in the temple. These are spelled out in the 57 verses of Leviticus, chapter 14. They are rather bizarre: the killing of birds and lambs and the touching of their blood to the sick person's ear tips and big toes. Jesus suggests the performing of the rituals is just to get the priest-approval so the fellow can rejoin the community. That's what really matters. 

Verse 15: Jesus' (don't tell) warning seems to have had the opposite effect - news of the cure spreads far and wide and the crowds around him grow even larger. But notice this, the first thing people want from Jesus is to hear him. But what might he say to me? Whatever he might say, it's not going to be about laws, but about relationships. That's what the cure did - it put the man back into relationship.

Verse 16: We have this idea of Jesus that he was always in a crowd. Not so. Here we are told he "slipped away quietly to a deserted place for prayer." No self-congratulatory tweeting about it all, just intimacy with God.