| 2 Kings 5:14-17 2 Timothy 2:8-13 View Readings | Psalm 98:1-4 Luke 17:11-19 |
In both today’s first reading and the Gospel, God heals the sick. Through his prophet Elisha, God healed Naaman, the Syrian, a foreigner, and in the Gospel Jesus healed the 10 lepers. In each case, there is an experience of deep and profound gratitude on behalf of the one healed, at least on the part of the Samaritan leper who returned to thank Jesus.
Naaman’s story is really one of the fascinating stories of the Old Testament. Naaman was a successful military leader from Assyria who was afflicted with leprosy—a very serious skin disease. His leprosy was not only shameful to him, but it also compromised his ability to fulfill his duties.
The Assyrians were the enemies of the Jews. And on one of his military raids they captured a young Jewish girl who became the servant of Naaman. This young Jewish girl, taking pity on Naaman because of his leprosy, told Naaman that there was a prophet in Israel who could work miracles cure him of his leprosy.
So Naaman comes to Israel, with loads of silver, and gold,
and fine garments as payment for the healing, and arrives at Elisha’s home. Elisha doesn’t see him, but sent a servant to
tell Naaman that to be healed he had to go to the Jordan river and wash himself
seven times. Now if you’ve ever been to
Israel, you know that the Jordan River isn’t that impressive, it’s more of a
little stream at places. So, Naaman, the
great general, who came all this way, who brought all these fine gifts, was a
little put off.
He took one look at the Jordan and said basically, “I’m not going to wash myself in that muddy creek, we have much better rivers back in Assyria!” But his servants talk him into following Elisha’s orders, and that’s where today’s reading begins.
Naaman followed Elisha’s orders, washed seven times, and emerged clean and free from his leprosy. His flesh became like the flesh of a little child, smooth and clean.
A great story! Notice how God works through the little people in this story: the servants. The little Jewish slave girl who most people who typically ignore, also not the famous prophet Elisha, but his unknown servant, even the great general was ready to go home, when it was his servants who talked him into it.
I think this teaches us that we shouldn’t discount the
simple wisdom of people that God puts in our lives. And also, to become like the little people,
to not discount the value of our own witness, of simply inviting people to come
to Church, encouraging a family member to go to confession. A letter from grandma reminding the
grandchildren to go to Mass and the importance of following our Catholic
faith. So important. God works through those little moments, as we
heard in the first reading.
Having experienced this miracle of healing, the general returned to Elisha wanting to reward him with silver and gold, but Elisha refused the gifts because the prophet wanted Namaan to know that he, Elisha didn’t cause the miracle, rather, it was God. In response to that, Namaan asked for two loads of dirt from Israel, to take back home to Assyria, where he could worship the God of Israel. Back then there was the idea that the God of a particular nation was tied to the land.
But the important thing was that he had come to faith in the one, true, God. His gratitude led him to faith. And that’s another important lesson for us: there is an important connection between thankfulness and faith. One recent spiritual writer put it, gratitude is at the heart of faith.
The word Eucharist comes from the Greek word, Eucharistia which means, thankfulness. When we come to Mass, we come to give God thanks, first and foremost for the immeasurable gift of our salvation. We thank God for the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, whose blood opened up the gates of heaven for us, without which there would be no hope for any of us to go to heaven. We thank God and praise God for our salvation.
Secondly, we come to Mass thankful for all of the blessings of our life. It is good when we come to mass to be very conscious of the good things god has blessed us with this week. For the gift of life, for the health that we do have, for the time we’ve been given to serve him in this life. For the good food we’ve eaten, for our homes and families. It is a very to acknowledge that it is God from whom all blessings flow.
There was a recent study that showed gratefulness to be linked with joy. This scientific study asked people how happy they were in life. They then asked them to list the things and people for which they were grateful. Guess what. The people who could identify reasons in their life to be grateful were also the happiest.
What’s the opposite of gratefulness? Ungratefulness of course. Someone who thinks they are entitled to everything. An entitlement mentality is very dangerous to the spiritual life. The ungrateful are never really happy, and are often a source of unhappiness for others.
Being grateful just doesn’t mean feeling good about things: hearing the bird chirping, the sun shining, good food, good company even people that don’t believe in God enjoy these things. Rather, gratitude acknowledges that these good things come from God, and we seek to make a return for his goodness through worship and acts of charity towards our neighbor. And we recall again the importance of those little acts of charity which God can use to bring others to faith.
In the Gospel, we see many of the same elements from the first reading. 10 lepers cry out to Jesus for healing. “Jesus, Master, have pity on us”. Perhaps we have cried out to the Lord in our need at times in our life. Jesus have pity on me in my illness, Lord Jesus, have pity on me in my sadness, Lord Jesus have pity on me in my unemployment, in my addiction, in my fear.
Jesus told the 10 lepers to go show themselves to the priest. And on their way to the priest, they were
cleansed. One of them, a Samaritan, realized this and returned to Jesus to give thanks. Upon returning, Jesus asked, “10 were cleansed were they not, where are they?” It’s an interesting question. They had probably returned to their families, to the people whom they loved who they hadn’t seen for a long time because their leprosy forced them to live on the outskirts of the community. It’s not like they were selfish, self-centered people, they were probably very happy that they could be with their families again and enjoy good health.
But it is the 1 leper who returned to Jesus whom Jesus praised, saying “stand up, your faith has saved you.” The other 9 were healed, they were cleansed. But the Samaritan was saved. Gratitude and faith lead to salvation.
And that’s what this is all about. Salvation. The leprosy of original sin was washed away when we were plunged into the waters of baptism. The plunging of Naaman into the Jordan was a prefigurement of our being plunged into the waters of baptism. And now cleansed of original sin we return to the Eucharist to give thanks to God, for our salvation. Vatican II even said, the Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith. The most important thing we can do as Catholics is to come here to give thanks and to receive the gift of Jesus’ Body and Blood in gratefulness, the food that nourishes our souls and prepares and strengthens us for our Christian mission.
To the grateful soul, the sacraments bring nourishment and unleash peace and joy that the world cannot give. Through them the Lord heals us of our many leprosies, and prepares us for eternal life, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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