THE MOST OBVIOUS LEPER
The late Bishop Fulton J. Sheen once was asked to describe his “Most Inspiring Moment.” This is what he wrote: A few years ago I visited a leper colony in Africa. I brought with me 500 small silver crucifixes to give to each victim of the dread disease. The first leper who came up to me had only a stump of his left arm. The right arm and hand were full of those telltale white open sores of leprosy. I held the crucifix a few inches above that hand and let it drop into the palm. At that moment there were 501 lepers in the camp, and the most leprous of them all was myself. I had taken the symbol of Redemption, of Divine Love for man, of the humiliation of Divinity into our poor, fallen human nature, and had refused to identify myself with all that that symbol implied. It is so easy to love humanity in general but…
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