Cycle C - Year II:  

9 October 2022: Twenty-eight Sunday in Ordinary Time 

(Liturgical Color: Green)

Readings:

First Reading:        2 Kings 5:14-17

Second Reading:   2 Timothy 2:8-13

Gospel:  Please Read  Luke 17:11-19 

Lifting our hearts to God in thanksgiving!

It's a beautiful new day and so let us praise and give thanks to God for the gift of life. Christians are hopeful people and grateful people because we are redeemed from our sin by the precious blood of God's only Son our Lord Jesus Christ. So let us strive to be grateful to God and thank Him many times during the day.

The Gospel for this Sunday presents to us a case of gratitude, and also a lack of it.  St. Luke gives an account of ten lepers who were healed by our Lord Jesus, but only one came back to thank Him for the healing.

Trivia: In biblical times lepers were regarded the outcasts of society.  A person with leprosy has open and smelly sores and deformities in one's nose, fingers and toes.  According to Moses Law, lepers had to live apart from the rest of the community (Numbers 5:2-3), and were required to shout a warning to others when they were nearby (Leviticus 13:45-46).

The Gospel story:  Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem passing through Samaria and Galilee.  He met ten lepers who begged Him to cure them of their leprosy.  Our Lord grants their request and heals or "cleanses" the ten lepers as He orders them to show themselves to the priests. When they were healed only one came back to thank Jesus; and he was a Samaritan. And Samaritans were considered also the outcasts of society in their time. And yet, the grateful Samaritan in the story glorified God with a loud cry as he realized the great gift he has been given and the goodness of the One who gave it, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, it is mystifying that only one of the ten lepers came back to say "thank you" to Jesus. The Gospel story does not tell us why.  But there is something wrong with the lack of gratitude of the others. So Jesus wondered, "Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?" (Luke 17:17-18)  

We can say that all ten lepers have faith in Jesus to ask Him for healing, but only one experiences deep gratitude. The Samaritan goes out of his way to thank Jesus in person. How often do we also take God's many blessings for granted?

As Christians we should always give thanks for our many blessings, like family, friends, home, food on our table, a good job, being healthy, and many more. Our gratefulness must also include the many kindness we receive from others as well by way of such little gestures as a "thank you" note or phone call or text. Because we must always acknowledge when we have been blessed with precious gifts at home or at work. 

Let us also ask for the virtue of humility. We need to be more humble, for humility leads us to acknowledge that all we have and all that we are come from God. Pride rejects any acknowledgement of the favors and gifts we have received from Him.

God makes amazing miracles in our lives every single day, some are spectacular perhaps, and others are so small they can be easily missed and overlooked if we weren't paying attention.  Both the spectacular and small ones are God's gifts and without them we will be less.  So let our eyes be opened to God's works in our daily lives.  So that we do not simply go about our day but rather stop whatever we are doing to give our Lord Jesus Christ all praise and glory for His many gifts and blessings.  Participating in the Eucharist at Mass is our best way of "glorifying God in a loud voice" for His most wondrous gift of life.

Also, we celebrate the Indigenous Peoples" Sunday and Extreme Poverty Sunday. Let us support with prayers their struggle to preserve their beautiful cultural traits and their rights, and help the poorest of the poor among us.

Let us pray: Lord, teach us to be grateful always for the gift of life and the many blessings, great and small, that come with it every day. Amen.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!