Sunday Meditation: The Compassion of the Great Healer

For the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year C, we get Jesus healing of the ten lepers.  Three years ago I pointed out important healing was in Christianity.  We see Jesus the healer in this passage.  But there is also Jesus the priest.  Part of the duties of an Old Testament priest was to determine what was ritually pure and what wasn’t.  Those with a skin disease were not ritually pure, and the priests had the authority to exclude anyone with a skin disease and then accept them back when cured.  And so, having heard of the miraculous powers of this Jesus of Nazareth, ten lepers appeal to Jesus to be cured.

 

Here is the Gospel passage.

 

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 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."

~Lk 17:11-19

 

There are several twists in this passage.  The first is that the lepers know of Jesus as having the power to cure.  Second that the one who is grateful is a Samaritan.  I’ll save the third for below.

Let Fr. Geoffrey Plant explain the passage and how it connects to the First Reading.

I think it particularly important that the healing allowed the diseased to return to society.  The healing makes them whole in various ways.

The pastoral homily is from a Dominican Friar from the Western Province, Br. John Vianney Russell, O.P.  Br. John Vianny, and yes he is not even a priest yet, provides the third twist that blew my socks off.

Is that impressive!  The third twist is that the cured leper does go to the priest.  He returns to Jesus, the Great High Priest who can make anyone pure.

Now one last thing.  The pastor (Fr. Anthony Gonzales) at this morning’s Mass at my parish in his homily said all ten were healed but only one was saved.  Do you think that true? 

 

Sunday Meditation: "Go show yourselves to the priests."

 

Let’s return to John Michael Talbot with “Healer of My Soul” for the hymn.

 

 

That lovely melody heals as well.