Healing of leper is sign of Christ's mission, Pope tells Sunday audience
February 13, 2012
When Jesus cured a leper, his “gesture and words encapsulate the entire history of salvation,” Pope Benedict XVI told his midday audience on Sunday, February 12. Jesus shows “God’s will to heal us, to purify us from the evil which disfigures us and blights our relationships,” the Pope said. He remarked that at the time of Christ, leprosy was regarded as the most serious of diseases, and one that drove its victims out of society.
But Jesus did not follow the law, and avoid the leper, the Pope continued. By reaching out to the victim of the disease, He “broke down all barriers between God and human impurity; between the sacred and its opposite.” In doing so, the Pontiff added, Jesus was not denying the existence of evil but showing that God is stronger.
This is the story of Christ’s salvific mission, the Pope said: “He became a ‘leper’ that we might be purified.”
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