Clothe the Naked

I haven't seen many naked people wandering the streets. Granted there are a large number of people who need clothes because they are making do with clothes that are substandard due to their financial condition. It would be the easiest thing in the world for us to simply clean out a closet or two and fill a garbage bag and drop it at a dumpster for some organization of un-named people to distribute it as they see fit.

The harder thing, the more difficult thing, would be to give people the dignity they are starving for. To actually engage the human beings around us. Not just to engage them, but to actually "embrace" them with the embrace that Francis found himself in when he embraced the leper.

This was a man who wasn't naked, but naked in terms of his dignity. Cast out from society, seen as an "untouchable" and someone who was even unworthy of love. Here was Francis, rich, spoiled, and probably wanting to look his best and he simply hugged the leper. In that moment he gave the leper the dignity that he deserved.

Not because he was a leper.

Not because he was a beggar.

Not because he was poor.

Not because he was Francis.

Simply because it was a human being who needed the dignity of knowing that they deserved love as much as any other human being.

Who are the lepers in your own life? Who are the people who are naked? The people that no one else would embrace? The people that everyone has cast out because they somehow have offended their sensibilities.

They may not be actual lepers but they may be unclean because they are suffering from an illness that makes them unacceptable to others. Maybe it is an addiction, a mental illness, perhaps they suffer from a disorder that makes it difficult for them to interact with others socially.

They may not be beggars but they may be begging for attention. Not an unhealthy attention, but perhaps the basic attention from another person that you and I get every single day of our lives from the people we know and love. Perhaps they don't have that support system.

They may not be homeless, but it may feel like that when they get home. The loneliness may be overwhelming.

We may not be St. Francis of Assisi. We may have different gifts. We may not be Francis before his conversion.

The truth is that we have the same types of opportunities that Francis had. We have the opportunities to embrace lepers every single day. To clothe them. To give them dignity.

It would be a shame if we continued to let those opportunities pass us by.

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