Today the church celebrates Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time. Let us pray. Open our hearts and hands, O God, to welcome into our lives and embrace those we shun as unclean and reject as lepers. By the light of your grace, help us to see You in one another, recognizing that you have created them too, in Your own sacred image. May the compassion and generosity Your Son has taught us, be the means of cleansing away the leprosy of pride, greed, and intolerance from our own lives and communities. Amen.