Thursday 15 January 2026
1 Samuel 4:1-11. Save us, Lord, in your mercy – Ps 43(44):10-11, 14-15, 24-25. Mark 1:40-45.
Reach out
‘If you are willing, you can make me clean.’ We are told Jesus was moved with compassion and stretched out his hand to touch the person. Touching a person with leprosy meant that Jesus became unclean and outcast from society. Jesus experienced what it is like to be on the outside. Yet he still chose to heal and to bring that person back into community. Who is on the outside of our communities today, shunned and isolated? People struggling with mental ill health, people with disabilities whom we don’t know how to accommodate, people addicted to harmful substances, people who speak English as a second or third or fourth language and who struggle to figure out our cultural nuances. Are we also moved with compassion when we see such exclusion, and what do we do to reach out and touch people where they’re at and offer a healing embrace?
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