Dear friends in Christ

This weekend we come to the Sunday before the start of Lent—Quinquagesima Sunday as it was called—to denote fifty days before Easter. It is the miracle of the healing of the Leper that we hear read at Mass this Sunday; an appropriate Gospel as we prepare to enter this season of interior purification which we call the Lenten Spring. The Fathers of the Church saw leprosy as a symbol of sin. All in all, sin is far uglier than any physical disease or bodily deformity, because of the consequences in this life and in the life to come. Our Lord has come to heal the sick. When He heals, when he cures us of leprosy, Our Lord performs great miracles. These miracles reveal God's power over the sicknesses of the soul—over sin. The same reflection is developed in today's Responsorial Psalm, which exactly describes and proclaims what joy there is at the forgiveness of sins: 'Happy the man whose offence is forgiven’ (Ps 31:1). Jesus cures the physical illness, and at the same time frees from sin. In this way He shows himself to be the Messiah whose coming had been foretold by the Prophets who 'has borne our infirmities' and taken our sins upon himself (cf Is 53:3-12) in order to set us free from all that subverts our spiritual and material health ... For this reason a central theme of today's liturgy is purification from sin, which is the leprosy of the soul. (Pope St John Paul II, 17.II.’85) Jesus tells us that this is why he has come—to forgive, to redeem, to set us free from sin, the leprosy of the soul.

As we approach these purifying days of Lent, we do so on Ash Wednesday with a sincere and profound act of sorrow-humility which will bring us with renewed spirits to the celebration of the Paschal feast of Easter!

God bless you!

Msgr Kevin Hale