{"id":9170,"date":"2026-01-14T14:40:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T13:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/predication.net\/?p=9170"},"modified":"2026-01-14T22:03:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T21:03:47","slug":"love-cannot-be-neutral-or-impartial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/predication.net\/?p=9170","title":{"rendered":"Love cannot be neutral or impartial."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Love cannot be neutral or impartial.<\/span>

<\/strong>“‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.'” Jesus had compassion for him. He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, ‘I am willing; be clean’ (cf. Mk 1:40-41). Jesus’ compassion! This “fellow feeling” drew Jesus close to every suffering person. Jesus does not hesitate; instead, he allows himself to be captivated by the pain and needs of people because he knows how to “feel for others” and has a heart unashamed of “fellow feeling.” “Jesus could no longer openly enter a city but stayed outside in deserted places” (Mk 1:45). This means that in addition to healing the leper, Jesus also took upon himself the marginalization imposed by the Mosaic Law (cf. Lv 13:1-2, 45-46). Jesus accepts others’ suffering, even at the cost of his own (cf. Is 53:4).<\/span>

Compassion leads Jesus to concrete action: to reintegrate those who are marginalized. These are the three key concepts that the Church presents in today’s Liturgy of the Word: Jesus’ compassion for marginalization and his efforts to integrate. Marginalization: Moses, who approached the question of lepers in a legal way, asked that they be separated and marginalized as long as they were affected by their disease, declaring them “unclean” (cf. Lev 13:1-2, 45-46).<\/span>

Imagine how much suffering and shame the leper must have experienced: physically, socially, psychologically, and spiritually! He is not only a victim of the disease but also feels guilty about it, punished for his sins! He is a living corpse, “like one whose father has spit in his face” (cf. Num 12:14). Furthermore, the leper experiences fear, contempt, and disgust and is therefore abandoned by his own relatives, shunned by others, and pushed to the margins of society, and even society itself expels him and forces him to live in places far from the healthy, excluding him. The situation is to the point that if a healthy person approaches a leper, he is severely affected and is often treated in the same way as a leper.<\/span>

It is true that these regulations were designed to save the healthy and protect the righteous. Their protection against every risk consisted in delaying the “danger” by treating the infected person mercilessly. This is why the high priest Caiaphas declared, “It is better for you that one man should die for the people than that the whole nation should perish” (John 11:50).<\/span>

Integration: Jesus overturns that mentality closed in fear and limited by prejudice and shakes it powerfully. However, he does not abolish the Law of Moses but rather fulfills it (cf. Mt 5:17) when, for example, he proclaims the counterproductive effectiveness of the law of an eye for an eye and asserts that God does not want the observance of the Sabbath to be at the expense of man and to be rejected, or when he does not condemn the sinner but saves her from the blind zeal of those who were ready to stone her without mercy, considering it an application of the Law of Moses. Jesus also turns consciences with the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt 5), when he opens new horizons to humanity and reveals the fullness of God’s logic. The logic of love, which is not based on fear but on freedom, love, healthy zeal, and God’s desire for salvation: “God our Savior wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:3-4). \u201cI desire mercy, not sacrifice\u201d (Mt 12:7; Hos 6:6).<\/span>

Jesus, the new Moses, wanted to heal the leper; he wanted to touch him, and he wanted to reintegrate him into the community without having to limit himself with prejudices, adapt to the prevailing mentality of the people, or worry about contagion. Jesus responds to the leper\u2019s request without hesitation and without the usual delays to study the situation and all the possible consequences! For Jesus, what is important above all is the salvation of those who are far away, the healing of the wounds of the sick, and the reintegration of everyone into the family of God. This offends some!<\/span>

Jesus is not afraid of this type of offense! He is thinking of open people who embrace healing and welcome any openness, any step that fits into their mental and spiritual patterns, and any caress or tenderness that corresponds to their habits of thought and their ritual purity. He wanted to integrate the marginalized, to save those who are separated (cf. Jn 10).<\/span>

There are two logics of thought and faith: the fear of losing the saved and the desire to save the lost. Today too, these two logics sometimes intersect: that of the teachers of the Law, namely, to marginalize risks and to distance the infected person; and the logic of God, who, with his mercy, embraces and accepts, integrates and transforms evil into good, condemnation into salvation, and exclusion into proclamation.<\/span>

These two logics permeate the entire history of the Church: marginalization and reintegration. St. Paul, fulfilling the Lord’s commandment to carry the message of the Gospel to the ends of the earth (cf. Mt 28:19), causes scandal and encounters strong resistance and severe hostility, especially from those who demanded unconditional observance of the Mosaic Law even from converted pagans. Also, St. Peter is harshly criticized by the community when he enters the house of the centurion Cornelius (cf. Acts 10).<\/span>

The Church’s journey from the Council of Jerusalem to the present day has been, without interruption, Jesus’ path of mercy and integration. This does not mean underestimating the dangers or allowing wolves to approach the flock, but rather welcoming the repentant prodigal son, resolutely and courageously healing the wounds of sin, rolling up one’s sleeves, and not remaining passively looking at the suffering of the world. The Church’s journey is not to condemn anyone forever, but to spread the mercy of God to all people who desire it with a sincere heart. The Church’s journey consists precisely in going outside the fold, in seeking out those who are distant on the essential “peripheries” of life, and in fully accepting God’s logic, in following the Master who said, “Those who are healthy have no need of a physician, but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Lk 5:31-32).<\/span>

By healing the leper, Jesus does not harm the healthy, but rather frees them from fear; he does not expose them to danger, but provides them a brother; he does not despise the Law, but values \u200b\u200bthe person for whom God inspired the Law. Jesus truly frees the healthy from the temptation of the \u201celder brother\u201d (cf. Lk 15:11-32) and from the burden of envy and the grumbling of the \u201claborers who bore the burden of the day and the heat\u201d (cf. Mt 20:1-16).<\/span>

Consequently, love cannot be neutral, aseptic, indifferent, lukewarm, or impartial! Love is contagious; it excites and threatens to captivate! True love is always undeserved, unconditional, and selfless! (cf. 1 Cor 13). Love is creative in finding the right vocabulary to share with all those who are considered incurable and untouchable. We need to acquire the right vocabulary. Contact is the truly communicative vocabulary, the same emotional vocabulary that gave health to the leper. How many healings can we accomplish and bring about if we learn this vocabulary of contact! The leper became a herald of God’s love. The Gospel says, “He went away and began to proclaim it zealously and to spread the news” (Mk 1:45).<\/span>

This is the logic of Jesus; this is the path of the Church: not only to welcome and integrate with evangelical courage those who knock on our door, but to go without prejudice and fear to seek out those who are far away and to show them freely what we ourselves have received . “He who claims to remain in Christ ought himself to walk just as he walked” (1 Jn 2:6). Total availability in the service of others is our distinguishing mark, our only title of honor!<\/span>

(\u2026) I invite you to serve the crucified Jesus in every person who is marginalized for whatever reason and to see the Lord in every excluded person who is hungry, thirsty, and unclothed; to see the Lord also present in those who have lost faith, have distanced themselves from the life of their faith, or have declared themselves atheists; the Lord who is in prison, sick, unemployed, and persecuted; the Lord who is in the leper in body and soul and in the discriminated against! We will discover the Lord if we truly welcome the marginalized! Let us always remember Saint Francis, who was not afraid to welcome the leper and those who suffer from any kind of marginalization. Dear brothers, the gospel of the marginalized, in fact, reveals our credibility!<\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Love cannot be neutral or impartial. “‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’” Jesus had compassion for him. He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, ‘I am willing; be clean’ (cf. 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