Friends,
today’s Gospel recounts the Lord’s healing of ten lepers, only one of
whom comes back to give thanks. Leprosy frightened people in ancient
times, just as contagious and mysterious diseases frighten people today.
But, more than this, leprosy rendered someone unclean and
therefore incapable of engaging in the act of worship. It is not
accidental that the person responsible for examining the patient in
ancient Israel was the priest. The priest’s job was to monitor the whole
process of Israelite worship, very much including who could and
couldn’t participate in the Temple.
What
is so important about worship? To worship is to order the whole of
one’s life toward the living God, and, in doing so, to become interiorly
and exteriorly rightly ordered. To worship is to signal to oneself what
one’s life is finally about. Worship is not something that God needs,
but it is
very much something that we need.
Wednesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 493
Beloved:
Remind them to be under the control of magistrates and authorities,
to be obedient, to be open to every good enterprise.
They are to slander no one, to be peaceable, considerate,
exercising all graciousness toward everyone.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deluded,
slaves to various desires and pleasures,
living in malice and envy,
hateful ourselves and hating one another.
But when the kindness and generous love
of God our savior appeared,
not because of any righteous deeds we had done
but because of his mercy,
he saved us through the bath of rebirth
and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
whom he richly poured out on us
through Jesus Christ our savior,
so that we might be justified by his grace
and become heirs in hope of eternal life.
As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying,
"Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!"
And when he saw them, he said,
"Go show yourselves to the priests."
As they were going they were cleansed.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
He was a Samaritan.
Jesus said in reply,
"Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?"
Then he said to him, "Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you."
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