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Gospel: Luke 17: 11-19
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.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Leprosy was a slow death sentence.
Long before a person died physically, they were stripped of their home, their family, and their dignity.
If there is any good in this lonely Gospel story prior to the lepers’ encounter with Jesus, it is this: leprosy dissolved the racial and national barriers that kept these Jews and this sole Samaritan apart. Under any other circumstance, they were sworn enemies.
But in this woeful colony of exiles, they were simply human beings in need, together. The boundaries that once defined their lives had been erased by their common affliction.
Suddenly, they hear Jesus of Nazareth is nearing. Like street dogs barking uncontrollably, each with a makeshift collar and a bell jingling around their neck, they cry out in unison, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”
Moved with compassion, the Lord heals them.
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Notice, however, when all ten lepers wanted something from Jesus, they cried out in unison. But when it was time to give thanks, those ten desperate voices lowered down to one.
How does the intensity of our own prayer life change when we want something from Jesus versus when we thank him? Do we pray harder in our need than we do in our gratitude?
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Although we can never repay the Lord for his goodness to us, especially for healing us from the “leprosy” of sin and death, we should thank him in three particular ways.
Pray in gratitude as often as we pray in petition; praise him wholeheartedly as a community of faith; and serve him in our neighbor.
May we spend our lives in gratitude so that the Lord may say to us what he said to that sole leper, “Your faith has saved you.”
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Image credits: (1) God’s Fingerprint (2) The Leper and Evangelization, Word on Fire (3) Pinterest