09 October. Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

1st Reading: 2 Kings 5:14-17

When Naaman the Syrian washes in the Jordan he is cured

Naaman the leper went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy and he was clean.

Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing!” He urged him to accept, but he refused. Then Naaman said, “If not, please let two mule-loads of earth be given to your servant; for your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except the Lord.

Second Reading: 2 Timothy 2:8-13

Preaching is a hard vocation; but we will also reign with Christ

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David-that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.

The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful-for he cannot deny himself.

Gospel: Luke 17:11-19

Of the ten lepers cured, only one returned to express thanks

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean.

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

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Our response to healing

The details of today’s Gospel episode are well-known. Jesus cures ten lepers, sending them to the priests, who can authorize the return of the healed lepers to their families. The account could have ended here…. but the evangelist is interested in highlighting the reaction of one of them.

Once cured, the other nine lepers disappear from the scenel and we know nothing more about them, as if they took the cure for granted and just got on with their lives. But one of them, realizing he has been healed, understands just what a great gift he has received: and that God is the source of his healing. Excited, he returns glorifying God in a loud voice and thanking Jesus.

Most commentaries  interpret the Samaritan’s reaction as pointing to the theme of thanksgiving: the other nine are ungrateful; only the one who has returned knows how to be thankful. Certainly that is what the story appears to suggest. But Jesus does not speak of gratitude. The one Samaritan has returned glorifying God… and giving praise to God is much more than saying thanks.

For a person of faith who is tested with illness, pain or any affliction, healing is a privileged experience that leads to giving  glory to God.  There is a famous quote from St. Irenaeus of Lyon that The glory of God is man fully alive. The healed body of this leper is a body that sings glory to God. We think we know all about how our organism functions, yet the healing of a serious illness never fails to surprise us still. It is always a “mystery” to experience in ourselves how life recovers, our strength is renewed and how, consequently, our trust and freedom grow.

Few experiences are so radical and basic as being healed, so that we get a taste of victory in the face of evil, of the triumph of life over the threat of death. That is why, with healing, we are offered the possibility of welcoming in a wholly new way the God who comes to us as the foundation of our being and the font of new life.

Modern medicine lets people today to live the process of healing more frequently than in times past. We are of course grateful to those who cure us, but our healing can also be the stimulus to begin a new relationship with God. We can pass from indifference to faith, from rejection to welcoming, from doubt to trust, from fear to love. This gift of God can cure us of fears, emptiness and wounds that hurt us. It can make us have deep roots in life in a more healthy and free manner. It can wholly heal us.

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Really Grateful People

A friend was once rushed to hospital with a serious pain in his back, the result of an old football injury. He was successfully operated and began to make rapid recovery. So relieved was he at the result of his operation, that he could hardly say enough in praise of his surgeon, the nurses and the whole hospital. I never again heard him complain about our health services.

After such a recovery, it is normal to feel a rush of gratitude for those looking after us. We also tend to feel a new joy in living and thank God for being spared from the worse ailments we saw around us in the hospital. My friend even dropped into a chapel on his way home, to say a prayer of thanks, a man who’s usually slow to show any outward signs of piety! But the real test of gratitude comes later when the first sense of relief has worn off. Do we remember then what people did for us? Do we still say thanks to God, who saved our life?

There’s an Irish custom of saying “Thank God” after remarking about fine weather, success in business or at school, the safe arrival of a child or a recovery from illness. It’s a good custom, built on a long tradition of faith and prayer. Nowadays we might wonder whether it comes merely from the lips and not from the heart; whether a people truly grateful to God would not show it more in their way of life. A grateful people would show more signs of sharing what they have with the less fortunate. They would hardly be as concerned as we seem to be with private gain, while so many are unemployed and while the continuing politics of austerity threatens the survival of elderly people and the chronically ill.

One of the most satisfying feelings is to receive a sincere “Thank you” for a service rendered and appreciated. We may not always be able to cope gracefully with thanks from others; we might even be embarrassed by the warmth of gratitude for something that didn’t cost us much inconvenience; but still there’s joy in being thanked for things we’ve done. The contrary also holds, of course: nothing is quite so hurtful as to be consistently taken for granted, without ever a word of thanks or praise. One out of ten was a fairly poor proportion; but then, truly appreciative people, willing to make sacrifice to show their thanks, are rare enough.

After Mass, we will try to bring this thankful spirit into practical social expression in our treatment of others; by seeing our life as gift, we should be better able to accept the realities of daily living and share our blessings with others in a generous spirit.

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Our Freedom and God’s Will

We in the developed world pride ourselves in having the best democratic system in human history, a claim which indeed is debatable. We rightly individual freedom and liberty, the right to choose freely. Yet how often people are swayed by pressure groups and show no scruples about inflicting hardship and curtailment of their liberties on others, in order to gain our own ends. We do not suffer dictators gladly but sometimes we want to dictate to God, make God do things our way, acquiesce to our wishes or leave us masters of our own destiny. There are some who abandon faith and prayer, because God has not granted their requests.

This was the inclination of Naaman the leper, the army commander of the King of Syria, as he bargained with God. Hoping to be cured of his leprosy by prophet Elisha, Naaman arrived laden with gifts of silver and gold, to pay for his cure. The prophet did not even come out to meet him, but only sent a message telling him to wash seven times in the river Jordan. This left Naaman deeply offended and disappointed and he prepared to return to Syria, raging. Why wash in this particular river, when there were so many bigger and cleaner rivers at home? “Here was I thinking Elisha would cure the leprous part,” he said, fuming.

Things had not gone as he had planned. It was only when his servants pointed out how simple was the prophet’s request that he was persuaded to try it and so was cured. Come to think of it, how often do we behave like Naaman. “Why do I have to go to church, when I can worship God out in the open air on Sundays?” “Why do I have to confess my sins to a priest, when I can tell them directly to God?” “Why does God send me the cross of sickness, when I could do so much good if I were healthy?” We even find such attitudes among our Lord’s disciples. “Why do you not show us the Father?” Philip said to him. Some complained, “He says intolerable things and how could anyone accept it?” and they walked with him no more. This reaction of unbelief is often found. But it stands to Naaman’s credit that he thought again, was cured and then returned to thank Elisha.

The way we think is often not God’s way. Things happen in God’s own time and way. We need to make an act of faith God’s conditions, not on ours. We must cease regarding God as a kind of super-puppet who will react in the desired way when we pull the right strings. When we need a favour, the Gospel reminds us to ask with prayer and thanksgiving, because God answers every prayer for help, even if not precisely in the way we imagine, since God only grants what is for our good. Our habit should be to thank God from the heart, like Naaman after his cure, like the grateful leper who returned to express appreciation of God’s gift. There is a sadness in the failure of the other nine to say a personal “thank you,” for what Jesus had done for them.

As Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.” The Eucharist we celebrate here is a reminder never to forget God’s greatest gift to us, his own Son, our Saviour. If we concentrate too much on asking for things, there is a danger that we may reduce our Mass to the level of magical thinking, a way of turning God to our way of thinking. How much better if we can open our hearts and our lives to whatever God wants for us, which is sure to be the best that can happen to us in the long run. [J-A. Pagola]

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Our readers will like Fr Martin Hogan’s book, To Know the Love of Christ, with homily reflections for the weekdays of 2017

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Please click here, for Kieran O’Mahony’s exegetical notes on this week’s scriptures; his audio-commentary on today’s Gospel is here, on SoundCloud.

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Saints Denis & Companions; also Bl. John Henry Newman

Denis came to France from Rome in the middle of the 3rd century and became the first bishop of Paris. He was martyred (beheaded) with two of his clergy during the Decian persecution of Christians, shortly after 250 AD. John Henry Newman (1801-1890) from London, England, was a scholarly Anglican cleric and preacher in Oxford, a leader of the high-church “Oxford Movement” which wished to return the Church of England to forms of worship traditional in earlier times. In 1845 he left the Church of England and was received into the Catholic Church where he was later made cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. He was instrumental in founding the Catholic University of Ireland, and wrote an idealistic work on the Idea of a University. Newman’s other writings including his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, The Grammar of Assent and the popular hymn “Lead, Kindly Light.” He wanted lay people to be involved any public discussion of religion and morals and promoted the idea of consulting the faithful in matters of doctrine.

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