28-06-24 Komuni Suci kepada umat di Kazakhstan.

Friday 12th week in ordinary time "Mt 8:1-4" A leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." And he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, "See that you say nothing to any one; but go, show yourself to the priest." That wasn't a piece of advice. It was a command. Jesus said the same to those other ten lepers: "Go and show yourselves to the priests" (Lk 17:14). Why go to priests if they are just human beings? Because Jesus has given us priests and 'commanded' us to go and 'show' our leprosy to them. Kazakhstan is a vast country in between Asia and Europe. A great part of its population is composed of deported people: Polish, Ukrainians, Germans, Koreans... Catholic families have been living in rural areas for hundreds of years but the number of priests in the country is ridiculously small. Most areas have never been visited by a priest. A Polish priest, Fr Jarek, went to Kazakhstan to help. He checked the phone directory trying to find areas where Europeans were living. (Those could be great grandchildren of deported Catholics.) When contacting them he would ask if they needed a catholic priest. Inhabitants of one particular town invited him to visit them. As he was approaching that town in his car, he was stopped by a crowd. "You will come into the town, father," they told him. "But not like that." They made the bewildered priest get out of the car and mount a donkey. As they led him into the city, Fr Jarek saw the whole town in the streets, the road paved with flowers, people in tears shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" They stopped in the main square, in front of an elderly lady. That lady had catechised and baptised everyone in the town. Shuffling towards Fr Jarek as fast as she could, she knelt down and kissed the feet of the priest, saying in tears: "Welcome, Jesus Christ!" The priest thought she was a bit confused and tried to explain that he wasn't Jesus. "You will say Mass now" replied the woman, "for the first time in history… Jesus will be here!" That day, thousands of people made their first Holy Communion. Mary, Mother of Priests, may we never lack good shepherds, holy Priests!