September 25^th 2016.Twenty Eight Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Luke 17:11-19

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL: Luke 17:11-19

As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he travelled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, 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.”

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Ten lepers were cured but only one was grateful. Gratitude is a sign that the leper was not only healed in the body but was also saved in the spirit. Good things can happen to us in life. Our physical lives or bodily health can benefit from these things. But salvation involves a transition that goes far beyond physical healing. The person who is on the road to salvation is someone who places himself before life with an attitude of gratitude. The heart of Jesus before his Father is a heart that is essentially grateful. We too become children of God by placing ourselves before life with an attitude of thankfulness for all the blessings that have been bestowed upon us. God has loved us, but if we don’t take time to contemplate the things that he has done for us then we will not even notice that we have been loved! Gratitude for the blessings that we have been given opens the road for us to love in return. There are many obstacles to gratitude in our world. The publicity of consumerist society tries to make us feel inadequate and poorly endowed. We feel that we are insufficient and have to go out and buy certain products in order to be complete. To counteract this, it is a good exercise to contemplate God’s abundant blessings every evening before going to sleep. We should count at least three beautiful things that the heavenly Father, in his providence, has blessed us with today.

The theme of the Gospel is gratitude and its link to salvation

This Sunday’s Gospel recounts the story of the healing of the ten lepers, only one of whom returns to give thanks to the Lord. The theme of the Gospel is reflected in the first reading from the Book of Kings. Here we are told how Naaman, the Syrian, is healed of his leprosy by Elisha. This story has two aspects. The first concerns obedience. Namann is given a strange instruction in order to be cured of his affliction. He is to bathe seven times in the Jordan. Though he is reluctant, Naaman is eventually obedient and he is cured. This theme of obedience - the relation between the one who makes a request and the one who responds in conformity to the request – is NOT actually emphasized in this Sunday’s liturgy. Instead, we read what happens after Naaman bathes in the water and is healed; the aspect that is emphasized here is gratitude. Naaman responds with spontaneous and exuberant gratitude to the effects wrought in him by the action of God.

Gratitude is a sign that the person has been transformed by the good things that have happened to him in life. Gratitude is the attitude of one who accepts salvation

This is a fitting prelude to the theme of the Gospel. Jesus encounters ten lepers, one of which is a Samaritan. Jesus gives them a curious instruction: they must go and present themselves to a priest. The lepers obey the instruction and they are healed. Only one of them, however, returns to give thanks. 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?” It is true that those who live in a house often take things for granted, whilst the guest – at least for the first few days – is grateful for everything. But here Jesus is talking about nothing less than the transition from healing to salvation. He says to the leper, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.” The other nine have only been purified, but this one has been saved. It is possible to be healed in the body but not be saved in the spirit. Problems can be resolved in a practical way without any authentic interior growth. Gratitude is the sign of salvation. It is the attitude of placing oneself in front of existence with the outlook of one who has received much, who considers life to be a generous gift. This is not something unconnected or trivial. The heart of Jesus, the only begotten son of the Father, is a grateful heart. Gratitude always goes hand in hand with salvation. We would have difficulty believing a person to be saved if they were constantly complaining, if they tended to see only what is negative, if they focussed on that which was lacking instead of that which was present. Such an attitude is an indicator that the heart has not been renewed. No matter how high your position in the church or society, if your heart is not filled with gratitude then you have not truly passed from the old to the new. You do not have a proper sense of reality. Gratitude encompasses a proper perspective on reality. We often find gratitude in the hearts of people who are very sick, attitudes of peace and super abundance in people who have grave disabilities. On the other hand we find people who are constantly dissatisfied. Publicity tries to make us feel dissatisfied, insufficient, incomplete, poorly endowed, so that we will go out and buy things. We are prompted to be anxious, to crave the wrong sort of completion. But the grateful heart is a heart that is serene before all of this clamour. It is a heart that rejoices in all that it possesses already.

It is essential that we cultivate our hearts so that they become grateful recipients of salvation

It is absolutely fundamental that we engage in a “cure” that involves the contemplation of the gifts that have been bestowed upon us, a listing of all of our blessings. We cannot arrive at love if we do not first have gratitude. Love is something that we receive from the Lord, but if we do not mediate on the way that we have been loved, on the blessings that have been poured upon us, then we will not be aware that we have been loved at all. Sometimes we look back in life and see all of the people who have been kind to us, who have been patient with us, who have taken care of us. It is only later that we realize who much we have been loved. At the time we did not register it at all. This Sunday we are presented with an urgent challenge: let us not behave like people who have been shortchanged by life; instead let us have the outlook of people who have been showered with blessings. A good exercise to perform every evening is to count at least three beautiful things received from Providence that day. It is an exercise that does us much benefit, to count at least three good things that life, Providence, our heavenly Father has gifted us with today. In this way we cultivate hearts worthy of God’s children.