“It’s been awhile now, but I read an article when I was in college about orphanages in Russia and at a time when they had a lot of infants and they had these orphanages to take care of these infants and the thing was that they fed them. They gave them all the resources that the child would need to survive, but they realized that the child would die, would pass and one of the things they realized was that without physical touch, the children would die. Without physical intimacy they wouldn’t learn how to bond. The same thing is true with all of us. In our lives not only as infants, but in our lives we need to be touched, touched physically yes, but not only that, touched emotionally, touched spiritually. Today we celebrate World Marriage Day and in a lot of ways the marriage is one of the best examples for us. Sacraments themselves are things given to us by Christ to exemplify his love to us in the world. Now marriage as a sacrament that means the love between the man and the woman in this marriage, their love for each other will give each of us a glimpse of God’s love to the world. That means your marriage. Your love for each other gives a glimpse of God’s love not only to your children, but to all of us in the community and that’s why in some ways we count on your marriage for it’s each and every one of your marriages that makes up the Church, but do you touch each other? The beautiful thing about a marriage is that for one, it has to be forever because it is hard. You learn to touch each other yes physically, intimately, but also do you touch each other emotionally? Sometimes we think that my own brokenness is too much that if I show it to you it might infect you, it might hurt you, but in a marriage it really is a commitment to each other that despite your flaws, despite your sinfulness this person in front of you sees more than that. They love you despite it and because of that it causes each of you to grow, grow in relationship with each other and then also in love for each other. That is the beautiful thing about marriage is that it does give a glimpse of God’s love to the world. How is your marriage doing today? Is it strong or is it in need of help? Do you even know? Can you sense it? Oftentimes we keep these things to ourselves. We’re afraid to reach out for help.
In today’s Gospel Jesus heals a leper, but leprosy back then it was almost a curse almost as if in the Old Testament they showed that if you were unclean then you had to say to other people around you that you were unclean. It was unsafe for you to go around others, but here this leper goes up to Jesus in some ways puts him in danger. Not only that, he trusts that if you willed it you could make me clean. Each of us in our lives we have our own brokenness, our own sins, but are we willing to reach out for help? Are we willing to reach out for healing? Do you trust that Christ can heal you? There’s a reason why you are married in the Church to your spouse, but also to God because we need God’s help within our own lives, within our own marriage, not only that but to be an example of God’s love to the world, so as you come before the Lord today where Christ is truly present before you in the Eucharist, let us continue to ask the Lord for the strength and the courage to come to him with our lives, to come to him with our marriages so that each one of us can be an example of God’s love to the world. Amen.”