A comedian has that line, the glory of God shines through all of creation except for
certain parts of New Jersey.
And that sums up the Mass.
It also sums up today's readings.
The glory of God shines through all of creation except for certain parts of New Jersey.
Well, how does that sum up the Mass?
We come here to give glory to God.
The problem is there are parts of us that don't glorify God.
We call those our sins.
We all have parts of New Jersey within us, parts of us that need to be redeemed.
And that's the penitential rite of the Mass.
Okay.
Before we can rise up and give glory to God, we acknowledge our sins, our spiritual leprosy.
We cry out, unclean, unclean, and then we can better give glory to God.
And that's the theology of the Mass, because we come together to give glory to God in union
with the perfect glory that Jesus Christ gave to the Father on the cross.
See, on Calvary.
Jesus offered the perfect amen to the will of the Father, the perfect yes to God.
Jesus gave perfect glory to God on the cross.
And we come to unite our amen to his amen.
And that's how we give God glory.
And like we said, those are the readings of the Mass.
St. Paul says, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, in all things,
give glory to God.
But the first reading said that the leper cried out, unclean, unclean.
And when leprosy in Jewish law made someone unfit for worship, that's kind of what unclean
meant.
If you were unclean, you were unfit for worship.
And that's what sin does to us.
It prevents us from participating fully in the worship of God.
Like we say, it doesn't glorify God.
My sins don't glorify God.
And actually, if you even touch a leper in the Old Testament, you became unclean.
Now, unfit for worship.
Now, Jesus' role, though, is to reverse the curse.
He touches a leper, and the leper is healed.
He touches a sinner.
And the sinner is forgiven.
And like we say, that continues through the Mass.
Maybe just a little background on leprosy.
Like first century, leprosy was incurable.
It was progressive.
It was fatal if not treated.
And leprosy was highly contagious.
Leprosy was definitely bad news.
But the scriptures use leprosy as a symbiote.
They use leprosy as a symbolic disease.
They use corruption of the body, pointing toward corruption of the soul, sin.
Sin is the real affliction of humanity.
And in Old Testament time, there is no remedy for sin.
Sin, it's progressive.
Even original sin is fatal if not treated.
Highly contagious.
It spread like wildfire through the human race.
The sin of Adam spread to all of humanity.
In the Old Testament, if someone contracted leprosy, they were considered as dead.
And again, the good news is that there's a remedy not only for sin, but even for death.
Jesus Christ brings that remedy.
The various stages of leprosy are like...
When you first get leprosy, you begin to feel a tingling in your extremities.
It's the loss of sensitivity in your fingers, your toes.
The second stage, the nerves begin to die off, and you experience numbness.
Lepers feel no pain in their extremities.
They're allowed to forget about their leprosy.
And this is due...
There's no circulation to these extremities.
And finally, the flesh in their arms and legs begins to decay.
There's the stench of rotting flesh.
The smell of a decaying corpse.
They say that parents will bring their own children to the leprosy hospital because they can't stand to live with them any longer.
And in the first reading, it was...
They had them die.
They had them dwell apart.
His abode shall be outside the camp.
They would isolate them, not only because leprosy was contagious, but also because of that stench.
They would be isolated from the general population.
But it's a similar way that sin afflicts my soul.
I feel that desolation, that separation from God and from others.
That's the first sign of sin.
When I fall into sin, if I persist, I gradually become more and more numb to sin.
I lose my sensitivity to sin.
It becomes a habit.
I lose that sense of sin.
The distinction between good and evil becomes blurred.
And finally, just as with leprosy in its advanced forms,
people can see it in me.
People can smell it in me.
Sin becomes obvious.
There's the story of the Curia of Ars, who once a princess came to visit him in his parish in Ars.
But she came with her royal retinue.
He would have preferred she came as a simple pilgrim, but she came with all her royal retinue.
So she went to visit St. John Marie Vianney.
When her stagecoach arrived at the church in Ars,
the princess was met by St. John Vianney, who said to her,
Well, the stench of your soul is too great.
I must leave.
That's what sin does to our souls.
We become unfit for worship, unclean.
And...
Let's see.
Like they say,
I become unclean if I worship pleasure, money, power, and honor.
Those are the basic categories of sin.
But the Mass is where God gathers all the tribes of Israel together.
Heals, cleanses, purifies them.
In his temple, which is his body, the church.
And...
We leave here fit to give glory to God.
One of the new Missal dismissals was added by Pope Benedict.
And that dismissal of the Mass says,
Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.
Pope Benedict added that dismissal at the end of Mass as an option.
Because that's our mission when we leave here.
To spread God's glory.
To spread glory into the world.
So, we say,
Old Testament times, the ancients said leprosy could only be cured by an act of God himself.
Jesus alone can heal the leprosy of sin.
When Jesus comes, leprosy gets stopped dead in its tracks.
G.K. Chesterton once said that,
If this is not good news,
there is no good news.
Sin and death get stopped in its tracks when Jesus Christ enters.
That's the good news.
Hollywood calls it the greatest story ever told.
But that is the good news.
And just as that leper comes to Jesus,
says, Lord, I want to be healed.
That's why we come.
Because we want to be healed of our sin.
Healed of our sins.
Healed of our weaknesses.
Healed of that spiritual leprosy.
We want to be made whole.
And through the sacraments, by God's grace,
he says to each one of us,
I do will it, be made clean.
So through the sacraments, through confession, through Holy Communion,
we are made clean.
Our sins are, those parts of New Jersey within us,
are healed.
And we can be restored and fit to give glory to God.
Through the Mass, as well as in the world.
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