A Healing Touch

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator

Hansen's Disease, the disease that we call leprosy, and the leprosy of the Gospels, the disease that Jesus confronts in today's reading, are two different things. The first recorded case of Hansen's Disease does not appear until several centuries after the life of Jesus. So we do not really know the nature of the disease which the Gospels call leprosy. However, we do know that it was apparently contagious and that it separated people from their loved ones, from the community as a whole, and from Temple worship. Ritual impurity, the technical term, for this type of isolation, made it impossible for people so afflicted to have any normal human social intercourse. Yet the Gospels clearly indicate that Jesus did not simply cure these people; he cured them by a touch, thereby incurring the ritual impurity himself.

Isolation is still one of the effects of illness. Chronic illness causes chronic isolation. When Mrs. Brunner founded CUSA in 1947, she knew all about isolation as she herself was bedridden by her chronic condition. It was this isolation that motivated her to join the organization in Belgium and to found an American chapter of the organization in the United States.

We hear a great deal about "mainstreaming" in today's society. Legislation and education have tried to make it possible for people with chronic conditions to enjoy the benefits of social interaction. However, even though we do not make the connection between illness and immoral behavior that the people of biblical times made, isolation is still one of the crosses that those who are so afflicted must bear. Though CUSA works through correspondence rather than through personal interaction, it is still a way to follow the example of Jesus who was not afraid to touch the lepers of his time.