"He fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him"
The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100922.cfm
In this age of medical miracles, antibiotics, aspirin, x-rays, cancer treatment, open heart surgeries, organ donors, vitamins, cures and potential cures and vaccinations for many diseases that threaten us, it may be very difficult to imagine a society with none of those medical advancements and protections. We would be helpless victims of just about anything that would endanger our health. With no knowledge 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. 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 could, 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. These poor individuals afflicted
with some sort of skin affliction generally termed leprosy, literally were
shunned from both society and from worship so they essentially belonged
nowhere. And Jesus walks in that same boundary between Samaria and Galilee
knowing exactly why he is there.
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 might cause more pain than the disease itself. Such was
true in the time of our Lord.
Our readings this Sunday open with a similar story about
Naaman, a man of great influence, who on the word of Elisha the prophet plunged
himself in the waters of the Jordan river and was cured of his leprosy. In fact,
his flesh, “became again like the flesh of a little child.” While the healing
is significant, Naaman’s reaction is even more so. He was filled with
overwhelming gratitude and wanted to offer a gift to Elisha who refused to take
the gift because he rightly saw that such healing came about through God’s work
alone. It is the God of Israel who would
heal Naaman and there is where the gratitude should be directed.
Likewise, it seems that those afflicted all had a sense
that Jesus could cure them; they believed in him on that level. They went to show themselves to the priest
according to custom once cured and along their way to the Temple, they were
cured. Yet only one returned to give
thanks, the Samaritan, the foreigner who would not be allowed in the Temple
precinct, came back to give thanks to Jesus. His faith in Christ was more than just a
surface level of request. He recognized
what Jesus had done for him, the new life a kind of resurrection experience
that he now had and was so moved to gratitude for what Jesus did for him. How he was saved from a dead-end life no
longer in the stigma of sin but in the new life of God’s mercy.
Yet, even more, Jesus is now seen as the new Temple where
all are welcome and invited to for healing and wholeness. It is our coming to Christ, our faith in him,
that will cure the leprosy of sin we all find in ourselves.
At the word alone of Jesus, those afflicted set out with
complete trust. We see it in the healing
stories when he says: “be healed, rise
and walk, receive your sight, Lazarus come forth, this is my Body, this is my
Blood, and your sins are forgiven.” Such
words ring deep in our hearts knowing, as the Samaritan man in our Gospel came
to realize, that faith in Christ Jesus is where our lives need to be
centered. Simply his word alone is all
that is needed.
Powerfully, we are also reminded that this healing
ministry to Jesus was not alone something of his time. But that work continues in the sacramental
ministry of the Church. Through the
sacraments of Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick and the Holy Eucharist we
experience a share in that same presence of Christ who comes to us as the
divine physician as it were, to gather us together in a community of trust,
thanksgiving and healed people
So here we might ask, what is my leprosy? What afflicts me that moves me to turn to God
for help? What wound or sin do I carry
that continues to be a burden in my life?
It might be physical, emotional, or spiritual emptiness. Whatever forms our leprosy may take, and we
all are afflicted, we must bring that before Christ for healing and help.
The other response is then deep gratitude. As the man was healed, Luke tells us he, “. . . fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him . . .” He fell at his feet in a
form of worship for he came to realize not only who was the source of his
healing but from where it came. 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 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.
And this should lead us to gratitude of the deepest kind.
So, where that leaves us is to recognize how in the Church Jesus continues this same ministry of grace and mercy. We hear: “I absolve you from your sins," "I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," "Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit," "Through this holy anointing may the Lord free you from sin", "This is my Body, this is my Blood.”
These are the powerful words of Jesus
spoken in the sacrament and in particular in that great, central sacrament of
thanksgiving, the Eucharist. Christ
comes to us in a substantial presence and invites us to lay our concerns on the
altar for offering.
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? The Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen
once said that if we had true faith, we would be crawling up to Communion! Such
an image emphasizes the profound, undeserved gift of our Lord given in the
Eucharist that we should be so overwhelmed by what Christ has done for us that
we would symbolically approach him with heads bowed, hands held out and return
to our pew with one giant “Thank you” on our lips. As Priest I have to
constantly remind myself of my own unworthiness to stand at the altar and bring
Christ to all.
Yes, gratitude for gift given, for his grace, and for who
Christ is for us is so lacking these days. Let us turn that around and truly be
grateful and humble servants of the Lord. That is a faith that will save us.
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 of Mass)
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