Martin was a young soldier in the Roman army. Elegantly dressed, he was mounted on his horse one day when he was accosted by a leper begging for alms. The sight and the stench of rotting flesh was so repulsive to the sensitivities of young Martin that his first instincts were to ride off on his horse. But something inside him made his walk up to the beggar. Since all he had was his military coat, he cut it in two and gave half to the leper while he wrapped himself with the other half. It was a very cold winter day. That night in his dream he saw Christ clothed in a half coat saying to the angels around his throne, “Martin has clothed me with his garment.” This event was the turning point in the life of him who was to become St Martin of Tours. The natural revulsion of Martin before leprosy is nothing compared with the ancient Hebrew attitude to leprosy. To the Hebrews leprosy was not only a most dreaded natural disease, it was also popularly seen as divine chastisement. The story of Miriam, sister of Moses, who was struck with leprosy as a result of her misconduct (Numbers 12) as well as that of Job who was afflicted with a leprosy-like skin disease reinforced their view of leprosy as divine punishment for sin. In the first reading (Leviticus 13) the dreadful practice of ostracising lepers is reported as God’s will: “The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying ....” But the gospel paints a different picture. Was leprosy indeed divine chastisement? Was the dehumanizing treatment meted out to lepers as described in Leviticus God’s will? If indeed these things were God’s will, then there is no way Jesus, God’s Anointed, would want to heal a leper. If, on the other hand, leprosy is an unfortunate disease like any other, then there is a possibility that Jesus who had earlier healed many sick people would also heal a leper. The leper in the gospel decides to find out the truth once and for all. Ignoring the law that requires him to keep away from people, he gets close to Jesus and kneels before him. Instead of shouting “Unclean! Unclean!”he says to him, “If it is your will you can make me clean” (Mark 1:40). Jesus’ reply, “It is my will. Be made clean!”(verse 41) did two things. First, it restored the leprosy patient to health. Secondly it proved to him and to all that leprosy was not a divine chastisement after all but a disease like any other disease that prevents people from being fully alive as God wants all people to be. According to ancient Hebrew belief, physical contact with lepers rendered a person unclean. Holy people in particular were expected to keep a safe distance from lepers. Against this background the gesture of Jesus who stretches out his hand and physically touches the leper becomes unthinkable. Has he no fear of being defiled? What is going on here? Jesus is challenging and redefining the traditional views of holiness and unholiness. Jesus is challenging traditional superstitions and prejudices that certain people are impure by the conditions of their health, social status or birth. An Indian friend told me that in his part of the country people of a higher caste would not sit together in church with those of a lower caste, the so-called untouchables. By reaching out and touching the leper and thereby making him pure again, Jesus is teaching us, his followers, to reach out and embrace the dehumanized and the outcasts among us. A deed of solidarity with the dehumanized does not dehumanize the doer, rather it restores full humanity to the dehumanized. Pope John Paul II has declared February 11, feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, as the World Day of the Sick. Leprosy, thank God, has become a curable disease. Yet the tendency to see some diseases as divine punishment and to ostracise those who suffer from them is still with us. Is this not how many of us still see people with HIV-AIDS? Have you not heard tele-evangelists who teach that AIDS is divine punishment for sin? Jesus challenges us today to abandon such dehumanizing beliefs and reach out in solidarity with these modern-day lepers among us, just as he himself did in his own days.