SIXTH Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

LESSON: Confidence and Humility Strengthen Our Prayer Life

In today's world, we can all use help with our prayer life, and the leper in today's Gospel passage gives it to us. He reminds us of two key elements in a healthy life of prayer: confidence and humility.

The first thing to note is that this leper has no doubt that Christ can cure him. He says to the Lord, "If you wish, you can make me clean." It's hard for us to have so much confidence.

Our secular culture is constantly sidelining God. This tends to make us think that we can solve all our problems ourselves, through science, technology, or hard work. But if we think that, then we don't really have faith in God; if God is irrelevant, he's not much of a God, after all.

But the leper didn't live in a secular culture; he lived in a religious culture, one that recognized the reality of sin and evil, and the need of God's grace to overcome them. And so, he came out of his isolated and self-destructive bubble of self-sufficiency and exercised his faith.

The second thing to note is that the leper also recognizes that he has no right to demand a cure. He doesn't act like a spoiled child and say, "Cure me!" he says, "If you wish..." It's as if he were saying, "You know what's best; if curing me will give you glory, please do so, but if not, I will still believe and trust in you."

Only the humble heart can tap into the roaring stream of mercy that flows from Christ's Sacred Heart, mercy which not only cured the leprosy, but touched the leper, something no one else had done since the disease began.

If our prayer weaves together confidence and humility, God will be able to do wonders in us as well.

Drawing on God's Bank Account

One thing that can drain our confidence in God is our tendency to fall into sin. We are weak and selfish and find it hard to resist the many temptations that surround us. And when we fall, the devil works overtime to keep us from going back to God to ask forgiveness and start over.

The devil says: "Look at you! Look at what a miserable creature you are! Look at how weak you are! "So many times God has given you his help, grace, and forgiveness, and still you keep on messing up. "God's mercy is for better souls than yours. Don't even bother him with your pitiful prayers and tears. Forget about it. You're not worth it."

But all of that is a lie, a big, fat lie. God's mercy and love doesn't depend on our being perfect - if it did, we wouldn't need it! On the contrary! Our growth as Christians depends on God's mercy.

Imagine a wealthy man with a lot of money in the bank. Now imagine that this man falls seriously ill. He is confined to bed. One day his accountant comes to him and tells him that he needs to sign a large check to pay off some of his expenses.

But the man says, "How can I sign a check? I'm sick!" Is that logical? Not at all! His sickness and his bank account are completely unrelated.

Well, the same goes for our sins and God's mercy. God's mercy is the bank account that was filled by the infinite love of Christ when he died on the cross.

• Our sins are our sickness.
• It doesn't matter how sick we become, we can always draw an abundance of forgiveness and the grace for a fresh start from God's bank account of infinite mercy.

Three Ways to Grow in Confidence and Humility

We cannot have a mature and effective life of prayer without growing in these key areas of confidence in God and humility.

How can we do that?

• There is no pill or surgical operation that can finish it once and for all - that's not how spiritual growth happens.
• Instead, we need to regularly and intelligently exercise whatever humility and confidence we already have (and all of us have some - they both were given to us in baptism).
• All virtues grow through exercise, like muscles.
• And of course, exercise is at least sometimes demanding and uncomfortable.
• This is why regular exercise requires a decision of the will, an act of self-governance.

Here are three ways to exercise humility and confidence in God; let's each choose one of them to focus on this week.

First, the sacrament of confession.

• This is the best exercise, because it was invented by God himself.
• Confession is a perfect mirror of this leper's transforming encounter with Christ.
• Think about it: everything the leper did, we do every time we go to confession.

Second, writing a thank-you note to God at the end of every day.

• By focusing in on the amazing gifts he gives us every single day - life, opportunities, friendships, grace - we put everything else in proper perspective.
• Gratitude reminds us of God's unbounded goodness, and of our childlike dependence on him.

Third, by being the first one to say we're sorry.

• Interpersonal conflicts are almost always the fault of both people involved, at least a little bit.
• When we take the first step to make peace, we are following in the footsteps of Christ himself.

Whichever exercise we choose for this week, Jesus will help us with it - that's why he is coming among us again through the sacrifice of this Mass.