"He fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him."
Sunday readings: http://usccb.org/bible/readings/101313.cfm
2nd Kng 5: 14-17
Tm 2: 8-13
Lk 17: 11-19
In
this age of medical miracles, vaccinations, antibiotics, aspirin, x-rays,
cancer treatment, open heart surgeries, organ donors, vitamins and cures and
potential cures for just about everything that infects us, it may be very
difficult to imagine a society with none of those medical advancements. We
would be helpless victims of just about everything that would threaten us. With a primitive understanding
of bacteria, infection, and how the human body works, we might well become
fatalistic. If you’re terminally ill, that’s it. Your time is up. No hope for a cure, short of a miracle.
Life
might become a day by day existence with no expectation of living much beyond
the age of 30 – 40, if you are lucky enough to survive childhood. Those who are
healthy would keep well away from those who appear sick. Those afflicted with
physical or mental disabilities, would be labeled as punished for some wrong
they must have done. For a moment, imagine such a society.
If
we can, we would walk in the world of Jesus’ time. The familiar story in our
Gospel this Sunday reveals both cultural prejudice and the outward boundaries
which Jesus’ challenged the society of his time.
Yet, not only his own time but the new vision he came to bring about
God’s mercy, forgiveness and hope, not just for the healthy and strong but for all.
The
story names leprosy as the disease these unfortunate souls, these “ten
lepers” suffered with. Would you like to
be identified by the condition you suffer rather than by your name or your
humanity? No longer would you be John or
Mary being treated for cancer. Now you would be “those cancerous ones” or
“those cancerites” or some such dehumanizing identity. Such a label would cause more pain than the
disease itself. These unclean ones must be kept far away from the community of
the healthy and their humanity was diminished in kind. Such was true in the
time of our Lord.
It’s
interesting to note that the affliction of leprosy as we imagine with the
lepers of Molokai and St. Fr. Damian was apparently non-existent in the middle
east in the time of Jesus. That condition, or Hansen's disease as it is known,
has been discovered by anthropologists as a later import from India. At the time of Jesus any condition of the
skin which appeared “unclean” automatically separated the clean from the
seriously sick or deformed.
So,
whatever was their physical appearance, it was enough to have thrown
these ten individuals far away from the community. The physical separation and the boundaries
established were clear. Yet, in reaching
out, in pushing those limits farther apart, the story this Sunday is far more
than a miracle event. It is more than just a physical cure.
What
Jesus has done for those on the fringe is welcome them into his family. The new
challenge of community centered in Christ is to look beyond prejudice, fear,
pride, selfishness and gossip to a family of brothers and sisters. We are united in our diversity because of
Jesus Christ. And this should lead us to
gratitude of the deepest kind.
As
the one who was cured, like Naaman in our first reading who insisted that
Elisha receive a gift of thanksgiving for his cure, this one man returned to
Jesus not offering any specific gift other than his overwhelming thanks. He did far more than just come up to Jesus
and shake his hand. Luke tells us he, “
. . . fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him . . .” He returned “glorifying
God in a loud voice.” He knew the source of his healing and was deeply humbled
by it. He recognized Jesus as one of
God; as one who healed not just his body but his entire person; as one who
treated him not as a “leper” but as a person deserving of value.
The
celebration of our Holy Eucharist is a moment to bring our limitations, our
sin, our own “leprosy” if need be to this same God in the person of Jesus to be
healed and even more to receive not just hope but Christ himself in the
Eucharist.
When
is the last time you felt truly grateful for the Mass? To know that we too are members of Christ’s
family called the Church is a fact that bears much reflection. Is our prejudice, laziness, or “same old,
same old” attitude keeping us from truly grasping what God has done for us in
the Eucharist? Much to ponder I think.
May your grace, O Lord, we pray,at all times go before us and follow after
and make us always determined
to carry out good works.
(Collect for Mass)
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