Dear Saints,

In reading today’s Gospel, it is at first tempting to be irritated with the healed leper for utterly ignoring Jesus’s directive of discretion. The man had just been given a new lease on life; you’d think the least he could do is honor Jesus’s one wish in return. But that’s part of the point. He’d just been given a new lease on life. How many of us would be able to keep quiet about such a turn of fortune?

Jesus knew that part of human nature well. Indeed, he highlights it in his parable of the lost coin: when it’s finally recovered by its owner, she calls everyone to see and share in her joy. And the leper is hardly the only loose-lipped Gospel figure. So why did Jesus issue such a futile command, knowing that it would practically be impossible to heed?

Perhaps he meant to tell us something about himself. Or, more precisely, about the kind of relationship he wants to have with us.

Think about someone who is extraordinarily wealthy: it’s tempting for friends and family to see her as a walking ATM. Or perhaps an ultra-talented chef: isn’t it natural to want that guy to cook everything for your next holiday meal? Or even just a loving and local grandparent: free babysitting, right? At some point, even the most generous souls start to crave a reprieve from the steady stream of asks.

Human beings often have an extraordinary capacity to perceive and appreciate each other’s gifts and talents, and that’s very good. But we also often reduce each other to how those gifts and talents can benefit us, and that’s not so good. We diminish people’s wholeness and undervalue their humanity. So perhaps Jesus commanded silence because he wants to remind us that if all we see in him is a means to an end - if we don’t see him as a real person - we miss the most important gift of all: his friendship.

Christ’s Peace,

Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ