Pity: sympathetic or kindly sorrow evoked by the suffering, distress, or misfortune of another, often leading one to give relief or aid or to show mercy: to feel pity for a starving child.

Mark 1:40-45

A Man With Leprosy

A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”[moved with pity] Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.

Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

Looking at today’s Gospel reading from the book of Mark, Jesus meets a man with leprosy, and being filled with Love [As Jesus always looks upon people with love] he heals the man. Another translation of this same passage Jesus is “moved with pity” The entire meaning of the passage is turned upside down with the mention of the word pity.

The man did not follow the warning of Jesus not to tell anyone, but he chose to talk freely spreading the news of his healing. Would you be able to contain yourself and not talk if Jesus had come upon you and made you well???

One of my fellow pilgrims wrote about pity on his blog about me after our last round of writing on the sacred where he says

“And every time I read his post I feel blue for a day.  What a life he’s had.  I’m sure the Pilgrim neither needs nor desires my pity… what an ugly word that is.”

It is not my intention to move people to pity me or my story. It happened that way, I had no control over how things turned out I just lived it as it came. And there was a time when AIDS was at its height in America that pity was something that some felt towards us. There is the pity that looks down its nose at you with a sneer, it is condescending and meaningless. I don’t know if you can give Pity a genuine meaning.

I think it took pity to move a people into a place that they could find themselves useful in the fight against disease. It could be any disease you can think of. I think we all try to give relief or aid or to show mercy to those who are sick or dying. Pity is not something I think about – and unless you bring up the topic, I can safely say that I don’t bring it up either.

We all have stories to tell. Some are more intense than others. I’ve never embellished my stories. They stand on their own without any help by me, the writer.

I have learned about Jesus and the fact that Jesus always looks with Love on his people. That is something that Monsignor Harty always said to us in class. And you can hear that sentiment shared by Ron Rolheiser as well. Jesus always looks upon us with LOVE. What a difference one word makes in a sentence.

We all know people who are sick in one way or another. And the best we can do for them is to offer our prayers and to look upon them with Love. You know, I don’t think that many of us think about pity, when it comes down to fighting for ones life. I’ve never heard the word come up in conversations with my friends who are sick.

I do feel a kind of sorrow with my friends who are sick. But I know I am powerless to do anything miraculous. If I were Jesus, or God for that matter, I would of course heal my friends and fellows. There would be no question about that. But one passes through sorrow and you move into action. I think that is the process we all go through. If you sit in sorrow and get stuck there feeling powerless to change anything, then you become mired in the mud and you are immovable.

Once you move into action – sorrow finds it place and there it resides. Some carry sorrow with them in their knapsack. Like a badge of courage to make sure everyone knows that we feel sorrow and so should you. It is a constant reminder of where we have been. If I wore a red ribbon every day of my life everyone who sees me would be reminded of my disease. Being constantly reminded that one is sick does not help us move into action.

The longer I live, the more action I can work towards. I don’t think about sitting in my shit feeling sorry for myself or for my lot. Because I have moved out of that way of living. Until I could find a way out of certain death, there was a time when sorrow was a constant companion. Because I knew I was going to die. It was just the end that was coming for me.

But I think Jesus stepped into my life and was willing to help me.

And I think that I was willing to do whatever it took to live as well.

I sat in sorrow for a long time. For years I imagine. Watching your friends die one by one and being powerless to stop it was pretty arresting. Knowing that the gun was trained on you was unavoidable. And for many, I think, that was their undoing. Because they got stuck in the headlights. And they could not move out of that light or that sorrow. They became resigned to dying, and in the end they did die. All of them.

But for me there was a shift into action, and it was not by my power alone that I acted. Men and women of greater faith than my own encouraged me into action, by telling me that I would not die on their watches. My medical team looked with love on their many patients. Many of them are still alive.

I also think that the medical establishment has to divorce any kind of emotional or spiritual significance to survival when it comes to numbers. For some, we get sick, and we walk our journey. Some survive. Some do not. For doctors, like mine, he cannot look at faith in healing, as I look upon faith in my life. I think pity is a motivator. I don’t want you or anyone else to feel sorry for me, and that moves me to act. I don’t desire ones pity or sorrow. Because I defied the odds. I really cannot tell you why I defied the odds I just did.

Was it God? Was it drugs? Was it faith? Was it me?Was it them?

Why do some survive with disease and they get better and why do some fall prey to death and fall? I believe that personal faith has a lot to do with how well one deals with illness and disease. And I know for many who are sick, death is the ultimate end, and there is no way around it. In those cases I can tell you that faith does wonders between the here and there.

Three things happened to me in succession that I can tell you were the turning points in my survival. And these three things you have to take on faith because they cannot be explained by science.

1. Was my near death experience on my last hospital visit many years ago.

2. Was my visitation by the beings who altered my body and told me that I would live. It happened. And I can give you the date.

3. Was my visitation by the Blessed Mother and the appearance of the crucifix on my windowsill when I lived in Miami Beach.

These three encounters I had to work on. These three encounters had to be worked into my faith life and my understanding of the universe. The near death experience showed me the other side. I sat in the garden, I asked my questions and they sent me back. It took a wise man on a beach to get me to start looking for the actual answers to those questions while I was alive and not wait until I was dead to ask them.

I believe in hyper-dimensionality. That there are beings here and there that can access the human existence plane of life. That’s the only way I can explain this visitation, where they took me and what they did to me, because after this visitation my T-cells spiked to over 1000  from almost nothing. It was a marked improvement that the doctors could not explain, it just happened.

I’ve prayed enough novenas to get me to heaven and back several times and I know what I saw on that afternoon. More to the point, the roses that she brought with her. The white dress and the calm voice that spoke. How many people have specific spiritual experiences like that? And are not afraid to talk about them. When they happened I didn’t tell anyone.

But it was that man on the beach that knew about what had happened to me without me saying a word. That had to have been Godly counsel. No? “You went across and they sent you back without any answers!” Or did they???

Do you carry those answers within you? If so then you have to find out, right? The only way to find out if you carry the answers within you is to act. Pity went out the window when it came to action.

Jesus might come to us and offer us a way to work out our illness into Glory. Surviving illness and disease is miraculous. Because we become willing to let God look upon us with Love. And we allow God to work his miracles in whatever way He sees fit.

I think we are all tested, with some sort of “Dis-Ease.” Whether it be medical or spiritual. Life would be too easy if there was no dis-ease. People with addictions suffer from a specific dis-ease. People with illnesses suffer from specific dis-ease. Some survive, many do not.

I also think that recovery and prayer and meditation has had a huge effect on me personally and spiritually. Going to mass, being accepted, being loved, all those things have only helped me maintain my willingness because God constantly makes himself aware to me. Through other people.

I think it all comes down to willingness…

Willingness to believe, Willingness to fight, Willingness to allow Jesus to look upon us with Love and to receive that love unconditionally.

Allowing God to use us and to heal us in whatever way we are supposed to be healed in order to prepare us for our own deaths. Because really, a life spent in prayer is a life that is prepared to die. Letting Go and Letting God is a very freeing way to live. Because in the end it will just be Me and God.

And won’t I want to hear him say “Well done, Good and faithful servant.”