Today Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Mark (1: 40-45) in which the leper says to Jesus, ‘If you want to, you can cure me’.

Fr Paul says Mark shows the warmth of Jesus’ humanity and his concern for the leper. The leper had no right even to approach Jesus, but he must have felt that he would get a favourable response from Jesus.

We hear the words in the Gospel that ‘Jesus felt sorry for him’ and this is a weak translation of the Greek. The Greek is far stronger: it is literally translated ‘Jesus was gutted’; in other words, Jesus felt it to the very depths of his being. Then Jesus does the unthinkable, he touched him. By touching the leper, Jesus makes himself ritually impure and risks being infected. We can only imagine the sheer horror of the bystanders at this outrageous expression of love and sympathy.

But it is a beautiful picture of the whole-hearted emotional involvement with the sufferer that Jesus has.

Fr Paul notes today’s Gospel Lesson – be prepared to take a risk for the sake of those who need our love and sympathy.