Gospel (Mk 1,40-45) - At that time, a leper came to Jesus, who begged him on his knees and said: "If you want, you can purify me!". He had compassion, stretched out his hand, touched him and said: "I want it, be purified!". And immediately the leprosy disappeared from him and he was purified. And he, admonishing him severely, immediately chased him away and said to him: «Be careful not to say anything to anyone; go, instead, show yourself to the priest and offer for your purification what Moses prescribed, as a testimony for them." But he moved away and he began to proclaim and spread the fact, so much so that Jesus could no longer enter a city publicly, but he remained outside, in deserted places; and they came to him from everywhere.

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

"A leper came to Jesus", this is how this Sunday's Gospel page opens, as if to underline the singularity of the event, given that it was forbidden by the Law for a leper to approach anyone. This severe exclusion – as the book of Leviticus notes – forced them to cry out: «Unclean! Impure!".
Today, not because of leprosy, the exclusion of a crowd of men and women, small and large, all condemned to marginality, abandonment and often even death, continues. Nor is there a lack of theoretical and sometimes even legal justifications to defend oneself from the many "new lepers". And the list is long, from the poor to migrants to the elderly, all discarded. That leper managed to overcome the barrier that separated him from Jesus. He was convinced that he would not reject him. Approaching Jesus, he begged for mercy on him: «If you want, you can purify me!». It is a simple invocation that was born from the belief in the healing power that came from Jesus. He prays: «If you want», not “if you can”. After all, what could a poor leper know about the will of that young prophet? His prayer asks for purification, that is, to be admitted again to that presence of God, from which his condition as an "impure" sick person excluded him. His desperation before Jesus was transformed into a prayer of trust and abandonment: "If you want". And Jesus could not resist: he stretched out his hand, touched him and communicated his will to him. In front of the poor crowds of this world he continues to repeat: "I want it, be purified!". It is a clear will that God also entrusts to our prayers and our hands: he does not want evil to continue to exclude the poor. No one must feel like that man, abandoned by God. It is the task of communicating the Gospel. And, as the apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians: «It is not a boast for us; but a duty." In the duty to communicate the Gospel there is the task entrusted to all disciples to convey to men the will of God: that no man must be lost. That leper, perhaps precisely because he was touched by this love, could not remain silent. And he shouted to everyone how happy he was. For this reason Jesus could no longer enter the cities. In the encounter with that sick man, Jesus takes on the condition of a leper, and here he no longer enters the city and remains outside. But people continued to look for him and flock to him.