Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity AD 2026

In the world in which we live, it often seems that whenever there is something beautiful—a flower in bloom, for example—someone is bound to come along and trample it underfoot. This can seem almost like an inevitable feature of human nature: when we see something beautiful, and even recognize its beauty, we may nevertheless feel an almost irresistible urge to spoil or destroy it.

And yet this is not an inherent feature of human nature. It belongs to our fallen and sinful nature. Just as leprosy, or any other disease, is not a natural part of the human organism, neither are sin and vice part of our true nature.

Unfortunately, we are as susceptible to sin and vice as we are to disease. And the weaker our moral and spiritual immunity becomes, the more easily we are infected, until we may finally destroy our own soul even while our body remains alive. Someone who has given himself over to the power of evil is, in a sense, one of the living dead—like a leper.

There is no other remedy for this deadly disease than the forgiving, saving, cleansing, renewing, and sanctifying grace of God: the same grace by which Jesus healed lepers and others who were sick, and the same grace for which He gave Himself upon the Cross of Calvary, so that He might bestow it upon the whole world groaning under the slavery of sin.