WEEKEND LITURGY

LEVITICUS 13:1-2,44-46     PSALM 32     1COR 10:31, 11:1     MARK 1:40-45

On the surface, the first reading above and the Gospel have to do with diseases - sickness.  Old Testament Leviticus is about how the priests should treat those with obvious skin disease.  Mark's gospel tells a story of Jesus curing a person with skin disease.  It may be fitting that this comes up now because almost everyone I know is either sick or has been sick this Winter. 

I have a list of sick people I pray for every day and the list keeps getting longer.  Sickness and disease are part of being human.  The imperfections of our genome, our complete DNA, condemn our bodies  to a limited lifespan - one dotted with the miseries of sickness.  No way around it.

But, if you believe in God, you can bring yourself to believe in an afterlife, an existence after your human body dies.  Then, you can envision an existence without the miseries associated with the body - aging and sickness.  I think we can call this existence Heaven.
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