“And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” Luke 2:52
One specially hot morning, I took Jesus with me to get water from the town fountain. I was singing as I went down the hill towards the town, and my Boy was skipping with joy. He liked to ask me the names of every flower and every insect that He found.
As we approached the center of town, I noticed there were a lot of people gathered, and some of them seemed very upset. I heard someone scream: “You can’t be here, the law prohibits it.”
I soon realized that a leper from Nazareth that had been living in a cave on the mountains, had entered the town square, and had even dared to drink from the fountain. Our laws are very strict with the lepers. They are not allowed to get near other people, to enter the towns, and they are even forced to scream “I’m impure, I’m impure,” if anyone tries to approach them. If a priest declares a person a leper, he is forced to leave town to live on the outskirts by himself or in leper camps.
I have always avoided conflicts, so I grabbed Jesus by the hand, I rushed to the fountain to get the water, and was about to return home when Salome grabbed me. Jesus began to play with the water. “Your Boy truly loves water, doesn’t He?” she asked me as she hugged her nephew. “He reminds me of when we were little girls. Remember how we used to play in the river?”
As we were leaving the town square to go up the hill to our homes, we heard a voice: “Mary, Salome.” We looked around but didn’t see anyone. “Mary, Salome.” The voice came from some shrubs off the main path.
We decided to go check out who was calling us but when we got near the shrubs, we heard: “Don’t get near me. I’m the leper.” We knew him from when we were little girls. I remember that my mother used to take him some bread and she would leave it near his cave. Then, Salome and I started doing the same thing. “I wanted to thank you for all the times that you brought me bread,” he said.
As he was talking, the bandages from his head felt off. He didn’t have a nose, there was a hole instead in the middle of his red face which didn’t look like a face at all since it was so disfigured. When Jesus saw him He got very scared. I calmed Him down by explaining that the leper was a good person who was very sick.
Salome sat down on a rock and began to cry. “Why, why?”
“I don’t know, Salome,” I answered her. “It must be God’s will.”
I grabbed Salome by the hand and I tried to calm her. While I was doing that, I heard a scream: “Get away from me, I’m impure.” I looked, and Jesus had approached the leper.
“Jesus!” I screamed. But it was too late. Jesus was hugging the leper. It all happened so fast, I was in shock.
The leper got away from Jesus, and he left running. Salome ran and grabbed Jesus. “What did you do? Don’t you know that he is contagious? Now, you could become a leper yourself.”
Jesus looked at both of us with His eyes wide open. “I’m sorry, Mother. I just felt that he needed a hug.”
I grabbed Jesus by the hand, and practically pulled Him up the hill to our house. Salome came running behind us. “Mary, you should take Him to the river and give Him a good scrub.”
When I got home, I knelt down by my bed and began to pray. “Please God, spare Jesus from becoming a leper. He is only a little boy and He only hugged the leper because He felt sorry for him.”
Jesus approached me and He asked me, “Mother, why are lepers not allowed to get near other people?”
“Jesus,” I answered Him, “leprosy is very contagious.”
“But Mother, it’s not his fault that he got sick,” he said. “If I become a leper, you won’t come near me?”
“Jesus, you are not going to become a leper,” I replied. “Let’s clean you up so we can be ready to eat when your father gets home.” I used up almost all the water that I had in storage and gave Him a good rub praying as I did that He would not catch the leprosy.
I was not able to sleep that night. I was so worried about what had happened with the leper and Jesus. But Joseph, always with his calm ways, put me at ease. “Mary, do you think that God is going to allow Jesus to become a leper? Calm down. He has a mission for our Son, and I’m pretty sure that He would not be able to accomplish His mission if He becomes a leper. Just like God has protected Him during these seven years, especially from being killed by Herod in Bethlehem, He is going to protect Him now.”
The next day, I decided to stay home. I had plenty of household chores to do since the previous day I had not been able to accomplish much with all the commotion of our encounter with the leper. Around noon, I heard screams outside. I went out, and I found Salome, who was running towards our home.
“Mary, you are not going to believe what has happened. The leper has been cured,” she said. “He showed up at the town square today. At first, nobody recognized him. But then he started talking, and he said that yesterday, after he left Nazareth and went back to his cave in the mountains, he started to feel stronger. First, he stopped limping. He was able to drop his crutches because he did not need them anymore. And then, he noticed that his skin was healing. And by the time he reached the cave, he touched his face and he had a nose. He looked at his arms and legs, and his skin was fully healed.”
“But how is that possible?” I said.
“He is saying that Jesus healed him,” said Salome.
“That is ridiculous,” I replied. “Why would he say that?”
“People began to ask him what was the last thing that happened before he headed back to his cave,” Salome answered me. “He said that he was talking to us on the side of the road, and Jesus approached him and hugged him.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Jesus only hugged him. How could he possibly cure him? He is only a little boy.”
Salome looked at me with a funny face. “Mary, is He the Messiah?” she asked me directly.
“Of course, not,” Salome. “Why would you think that?”
Salome didn’t say anything, but I know that she began to wonder. She left without saying anything else.
I went back inside, and I ponder all this within my heart. Could it really be that the leper had been healed simply because Jesus had hugged him? My little Boy was the Son of God, of course He could be capable of performing a miracle.
Oh Lord, how are we to face the townspeople? They are going to be asking questions that I am not prepared to answer. I just want to remain in obscurity for a little longer. Please protect our Son.
Reflection:
Jesus hugged the leper because He felt sorry for Him. What is my attitude towards the sick, the homeless and those that I’m wary of? Is it possible to love God and not love my neighbor? Why or why not?
Copyright © 2020 Christy Romero. All rights reserved.
Resources from the following books are being used on this journey:
1. The Mystical City of God: A Popular Abridgement of the Divine History and Live of the Virgin Mother of God by Venerable Mary of
Agreda
2. The World’s First Love: Mary, Mother of God by Fulton J. Sheen
3. Las Palabras Calladas: Diario de Maria de Nazaret by Pedro Miguel Lamet
4. My Soul Magnifies the Lord: A Scriptural Journey with Mary by Jeanne Kun
All Bible references are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) unless otherwise specified.
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