28th Sunday in Ordinary Time – October 12
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus was passing through a village on His way to Jerusalem when ten lepers stopped at a distance – for, according to the laws of the time, people afflicted with infectious diseases were forbidden to approach the healthy – and begged Him, “Have pity on us!” (Lk 17:13). It should be noted that Our Lord, true God and true Man, could have healed them immediately, but He did not. He wanted the lepers to participate in the miracle, requiring them, in addition to their request, to perform an act of faith: “Go show yourselves to the priests” (Lk 17:14). The ten obeyed and, still bearing their sores, departed.
Something similar often happens in our lives. We pray to God, even very insistently, for spiritual progress, healing of illnesses, solutions to family problems, remedies for financial difficulties… but we do not truly believe that we will be heard. Now, if one of the secrets to the effectiveness of prayer is perseverance in asking, another no less important is confidence that the Lord will hear us. This is the contribution He asks of us.
In the continuation of the Gospel account, another detail catches our attention: after realizing that they had been healed as they walked along, only one of the lepers returned to give thanks. The other nine were bound by the legal formalities that would allow them to regain the social status they enjoyed prior to their illness (cf. Lv 14:1-20), forgetting the God who had enacted those laws and had just performed a resounding miracle in their benefit! The concern for the law manifested by these ingrates was, therefore, a disguise for their own selfishness.
How often do human beings act in this way! When they find themselves in need and sick, they groan, pray and ask for help from Heaven. But as soon as they recover, they seem to forget entirely who so kindly helped them…
The lack of gratitude of those lepers undoubtedly hurt the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who asked: “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?” (Lk 17:17). And here one of the most serious aspects of the sin of ingratitude is manifested: “The debt of gratitude flows from the debt of love, and from the latter no man should wish to be free.”1 They preferred their selfish interests to repaying the gratuitous love of the Divine Healer.
The Samaritan leper, who chose to return to Our Lord, teaches us that there are two types of leprosy: that of the body and that of the soul. Of the former, the ten were cleansed; but their lack of love and gratitude towards the Saviour meant that the nine ungrateful ones remained, by their own choice, lepers of the soul through sin.
God Incarnate shed all His Blood on the Cross to save us. There is nothing, therefore, that He is not willing to give us for our own good. It is up to us to express our gratitude to Him. ◊
Notes
1 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. Summa Theologiæ. II-II, q.107, a.1, ad 3.
