28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
… This led Jesus to say, 'Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.' Luke 17: 17-18
Intro: Life is full of ups and downs. We're constantly faced with things like pain, illness, misunderstanding, prejudice, jealousy, ingratitude. Today's Gospel reminds us of just how easy it is to take God for granted. The Eucharist is our way of giving thanks and praising God for His all-encompassing love and healing forgiveness.
Readings: Naaman, a foreign leper is finally persuaded to overcome his pride and bathe in a Jewish river, whereupon he is cured of his leprosy, and returns to give thanks to God.
Writing to Timothy from captivity in prison, Paul reaffirms the Good News of Jesus Christ risen from the dead, and claims his willingness to undergo any trial for the sake of the Gospel message.
2 Kings 5: 14 -17;
2 Timothy 2: 8-13;
Luke 17: 11-19;
The characters in today's readings are people who are hopeless - people for whom all hope had died. As lepers, both Naaman in the first reading, and the ten lepers in the Gospel (one of whom was a Samaritan, originally Jews who had intermarried with foreigners, non-Jews and consequently despised by the Jews) faced the stigma of a bleak life, physical pain from an incurable disease, and
reduced to begging for a living, while spending that time in wild and desolate places away from contact with the rest of human society. And unclean also meant not being ritually clean and therefore forbidden to enter the Temple.
In his desperation for a cure, Naaman made a long journey from Syria to find the Jewish prophet, Elisha. In the Gospel, Jesus is travelling between the borders of
Samaria and Galilee. He always reached out to those who were on the borders, the margins, the fringes of society - sinners, those who were poor or sick, women, widows, foreigners. These were the people who always seemed to be most open to the message of hope which He brought, whereas the people at the centre, the heart, of His own faith, are the ones most resistant to the call of the Gospel message.
We might not have leprosy, which is easily curable nowadays, but we all carry our personal wounds and need of healing, whether it's physical, spiritual or mental
health problems, memories of times past; the burden of looking after someone who is elderly or sick, living in a loveless marriage, working at a dead-end job, or having neither money nor job, trying to cope with our belief in today's Church. These are the things which can marginalise us certainly a different kind of leprosy, but a crippling disease nevertheless. But often it's through such hardships and struggles that God reaches out and touches our lives.
Today's readings challenge us to live our lives in hope rather than despair. They invite us to put our trust in God, to give thanks to Him for His blessings and action in our lives. They call us to be people of hope. Look at St. Paul: despite being imprisoned and suffering hardship, from prison he clung to his hope, writing, "they cannot chain up the Good News." Only we can do that! Or, like the lepers, we can allow God to meet us in our own personal wilderness and touch our woundedness while restoring our hope - and our faith!
Intercessions
Acknowledging our need of healing, we come before the Lord with our own petitions, and those for our broken, hurting world:-
1. For the Church in every corner of the world. May She reach out with Your compassion to those who live on the margins of society - Lord, hear us.
2. For our one world. May the leaders in the First World become more aware of those who cry out in their need for the basic necessities of life: clean water, food, life-saving drugs; and pursue policies which are just, and protect the most vulnerable in society - Lord, hear us.
3. For all those who live without any seeming hope for their future, struggling with their faith in the Church or the circumstances in their own lives. In the midst of their pain, may they find Your healing presence - Lord, hear us.
4. We pray for Helen Phillips and Catherine McAulay who have gone before us in the ways of faith, together with William Hastie, John Harkins, Tom Dowds, Margaret Macpherson, Susie Tierney, Mary & Owen Ferry, whose anniversaries we call to mind, that they may delight in the joy of Heaven and the communion of saints -
Lord, hear us.
God our Father, we thank You for those times when You have healed the pain and hurt in our own lives. Give us the courage to imitate Your love and generosity of spirit with all those with whom we come into contact.