Sin is a leprosy of the soul, which disfigures it, and makes a person “unclean.” However, the upright of heart are not perfect and sinless souls. They admit their sins before God, rectify, and continue fighting. How does a Catholic feel after making a good Confession? The result is gladness, rejoicing, exultation.
Following Christ is not something hypothetical, only for mythical saints who are perfect, but a real and possible commitment for actual sinners who are on the way.
Jesus heals the leper with an exquisite display of charity; he healed him by touching him, certainly the first time anyone had touched him, skin to skin, since it was known he was infected.
Kindness is doing good to another and in a good manner. The opposite of kindness is cruelty, which is causing pain or suffering in another, especially deliberately. Indifference is another vice related to kindness. It is ignoring the good one could do for another who needs it.
Cunning persons might use kindness as a weapon to get an upper hand over a victim. A person in an inferior position might use kindness as a strategy to gain favor.
Kindness is especially praiseworthy when practiced by a person in a superior position toward a person in an inferior position, as a parent to a child, a boss to an employee, a caregiver to the one given care, a rich person to a poor person.
Kindness must be guided by truth. It is not kind to confirm people in their wrong-doing, although sometimes might be appropriate to keep silent.
We grow in kindness by doing kind acts. Kindness begins at home, so the first beneficiaries of our kindness should be family members, and it can begin with the tiniest acts, like passing the salt.
It would be very mean of us to just try not to annoy, or hurt, or clash with the others. How could we be satisfied with that? Family life is an opportunity for us to show human and supernatural affection. Those small services we perform for the others are acts of love; and so are the things we do to help them, even when they don't realize it. So too are our efforts to bring cheerfulness into their lives, and the many other little things the heart discovers when it truly loves. What to other eyes could seem mere courtesy and good manners, in our case should be genuine charity, a sure sign of fraternal love.
The basic principle is to notice or ask what someone might want or need, and then quietly supply it. Courtesy and thoughtfulness are great aids in acting kindly. So is a spirit of service and humility.
Loving others is a clear sign that we really do love God, and that as a result, we love everything He loves, and in the way that He loves it. If God's own Love dwells within us, we will become Christ passing by.
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