NOTES for Mar 1:40-45
These words sound unusual: if You are willing, You can make me clean. We are accustomed to the fact that, for anyone who asks, his own desire comes first. And when we see this petition, we understand that this man’s rejection by others has produced in him a vast and genuine humility. In fact, this is the ideal form of a prayer of petition. And when one thinks about it, it is all the more dreadful to see this man’s behavior after his healing. Why can he not fulfill a simple request, if only out of gratitude?! This is hard to understand; everyone must struggle painfully with this text. But the Church does not choose the contents of a Gospel reading by chance. Let us pay attention to the words with which the reading begins: in the morning, rising very early, He went out and departed to a solitary place, and there He prayed. These words immediately calm somewhat the storm in the soul caused by the former leper’s behavior, and one remembers another prayer of petition: Thy will be done. It is not so difficult to utter the best prayer in the world; it is much harder afterward to ascend the cross. This is precisely what sometimes fails to happen with the leper and with us.