This homily is based on Mark 1:40-45.
Many years ago when I was still a Jesuit novice, I was assigned to work for a month as an orderly in the charity spinal ward of National Orthopedic Hospital. The nurses were overworked and counted on us to help them out with the non-medical care of the patients. The patients, whose beds were crammed into four wards, had many needs because they were all paralyzed either from the waist down or worse, the neck down.