Fr. Tom just returned from vacation. This week, Fr. Tom Margevicius is offering a reflection.
Jesus instructed the leper he healed, “Don’t tell anyone about it.” That puzzles us, and many have attempted to explain it. On a practical level, Jesus could be doing crowd control: the more famous he became, the harder it would be to get around. On a social level, he didn’t want his followers to misunderstand him to be either a magic-worker or political usurper. There may be truth in both these explanations.
But on the most intimate level, to experience the touch of Jesus is very personal. When we let him into the place where we feel most vulnerable, most leprous and needing healing, we open ourselves up to deep intimacy with him. Paradoxically, that intimacy is diluted if we broadcast it indiscriminately.
Spouses don’t mind other people knowing that they are in love, but the particulars of their most intimate moments is something they share between just themselves. To blab about it to anyone else would betray, or at least erode, the intimacy.
When we experience the touch of Jesus in our deepest, most vulnerable place, he is inviting us to get personal with him, to look him in the eye and say, “I want to be healed,” and to not avert our gaze as he replies, “I want that too. Let me touch you.”
That personal touch happens in the Eucharist. We may feel unclean, but we look him in the eye and say, “Lord, I am not worthy. But only say the word and my soul will be healed.”