January 13, 2011 Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1
Heb 3:7-14
The Holy Spirit says:
Oh, that today you would hear his voice,
“Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion
in the day of testing in the desert,
where your ancestors tested and tried me
and saw my works for forty years.
Because of this I was provoked with that generation
and I said, ‘They have always been of erring heart,
and they do not know my ways.’
As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter into my rest.’”
Take care, brothers and sisters,
that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart,
so as to forsake the living God.
Encourage yourselves daily while it is still “today,”
so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin.
We have become partners of Christ
if only we hold the beginning of the reality firm until the end.

Ps 95:6-7c, 8-9, 10-11

Responsorial Psalm

R. (8) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Forty years I was wearied of that generation;
I said: “This people’s heart goes astray,
they do not know my ways.”
Therefore I swore in my anger:
“They shall never enter my rest.”
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Mk 1:40-45

Gospel

A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him,
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.
Then he said to him, “See that you tell no one anything,
but go, show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them.”
The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.S

REFLECTION

There is a lot that this leper has to teach us about God's will. He came to Jesus not imposing his will but giving Jesus the freedom to choose whether to cure him or not. "Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean." And the Lord told him, "I do will it, be made clean." This leper knows that even his leprosy is God's will for him.  He knows that nothing happens in the world that is contrary to the will of  God. Our sickness, our problems, our difficulties are God's will.  And so is our happiness and our enjoyments. That is why this leper never presumed to tell Jesus what to do. Unlike most of us who would demand from God what we want, he simply gave the choice to the Lord.  Jesus also did the same in the garden of Gethsemane when he prayed, "Father, let this cup pass away from me, but not my will but your will be done."