Scott Hahn with David Scott
A foreign leper is cleansed and in thanksgiving returns to offer homage to the God of Israel. We hear this same story in both the First Reading and Gospel today.
There were many lepers in Israel in Elisha’s time, but only Naaman the Syrian trusted in God’s Word and was cleansed (see Luke 5:12-14).
Today’s Gospel likewise implies that most of the 10 lepers healed by Jesus were Israelites—but only a foreigner, the Samaritan, returned. In a dramatic way, we’re being shown today how faith has been made the way to salvation, the road by which all nations will join themselves to the Lord, becoming His servants, gathered with the Israelites into one chosen people of God, the Church (see Isaiah 56:3-8).
Today’s Psalm also looks forward to the day when all peoples will see what Naaman sees—that there is no God in all the earth except the God of Israel.
We see this day arriving in today’s Gospel. The Samaritan leper is the only person in the New Testament who personally thanks Jesus. The Greek word used to describe his “giving thanks” is the word we translate as “Eucharist.” And these lepers today reveal to us the inner dimensions of the Eucharist and sacramental life.
We, too have been healed by our faith in Jesus. As Naaman’s flesh is made again like that of a little child, our souls have been cleansed of sin in the waters of Baptism.
We experience this cleansing again and again in the Sacrament of Penance—as we repent our sins, beg and receive mercy from our Master, Jesus.
We return to glorify God in each Mass, to offer ourselves in sacrifice—falling on our knees before our Lord, giving thanks for our salvation.
In this Eucharist, we remember “Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David,” Israel’s covenant king. And we pray, as Paul does in today’s Epistle, to persevere in this faith—that we too may live and reign with Him in eternal glory.
St. Bruno of Segni
from Commentary on St. Luke’s Gospel, 2, 40 (PL 165, 426-428)
What do these ten lepers stand for if not the sum total of all sinners? When Christ the Lord came not all men and women were leprous in body, but in soul they were, and to have a soul full of leprosy is much worse than to have a leprous body.
But let us see what happened next. «Standing a long way off they called out to him: “Jesus, Master, take pity on us.» They stood a long way off because no one in their condition dared come too close. We stand a long way off too while we continue to sin. To be restored to health and cured of the leprosy of sin, we also must cry out: «Jesus, Master, take pity on us.» That cry, however, must come not from our lips but from our very heart, for the cry of the heart is louder: it pierces the heavens, rising up to the very throne of God.
Odes of Solomon (2nd c.)
No. 21
I raised my hands to heaven,
to the grace of the Lord.
He cast my chains far away from me;
my defender has raised me up
according to his grace and salvation.
I have stripped off darkness
and put on light.
I have discovered limbs that know not
affliction, anguish or pain.
The thought of the Lord has greatly supported me
and his incorruptible communion.
His light has raised me up;
I have walked in his presence
and shall draw close to him,
praising and glorifying him.
My heart overflows,
it has filled my mouth,
gushed forth from my lips.
The rejoicing of the Lord and his praise
light up my face.
Alleluia!
Pope Benedict XVI
from Homily, October 10, 2010
On this Sunday, the 28th of Ordinary Time … continued reading of the Gospel of Luke leads us to the story of the healing of the 10 lepers, of whom only one, a Samaritan, returns to thank Jesus. Connected with this text, the first reading, from the Second Book of Kings, tells the story of the healing of Naaman, head of the Aramaean army, also a leper, who was cured by immersing himself seven times in the waters of the Jordan River, on the orders of the Prophet Elisha. Naaman too returns to the prophet and, recognizing him as the mediator of God, professes his faith in the one Lord.
So two lepers, two non-Jews, who are cured because they believe in the word of God’s messenger. Their bodies are healed, but they are open to faith, and this heals their souls, that is, it saves them.
The Responsorial Psalm sings of this reality: “Yahweh has made known his saving power, / revealed his saving justice for the nations to see. / Mindful of his faithful love and his constancy to the House of Israel” (Ps 98: 2-3). This then is the theme: salvation is universal, but it passes through a specific historical mediation, the mediation of the people of Israel, which goes on to become that of Jesus Christ and the Church.
The door of life is open for everyone, but this is the point, it is a “door”, that is, a definite and necessary passage. This is summed up in the Pauline formula we heard in the Second Letter to Timothy: “the salvation in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 2: 10). It is the mystery of the universality of salvation and, at the same time of its necessary link with the historical mediation of Christ Jesus, preceded by that of the People of Israel and continued by that of the Church.
God is love and wants all men to be part of His life; to carry out this plan He, who is Triune, creates in the world a mystery of a communion that is human and divine, historical and transcendent: He creates it with the method so to speak of the Covenant, tying himself to men with faithful and inexhaustible love, forming a holy people, that becomes a blessing for all the families of the earth (cf. Gen 12: 13).
Thus He reveals Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (cf. Ex 3: 6), who wants to lead his people to the “land” of freedom and peace. This “land” is not of this world; the whole of the divine plan goes beyond history, but the Lord wants to build it with men, for men and in men, beginning with the coordinates of space and time in which they live and which He Himself gave them. …
Pope Benedict XVI
from Angelus Address, October 14, 2007
This Sunday’s Gospel presents Jesus healing 10 lepers, of whom only one, a Samaritan and therefore a foreigner, returned to thank him (cf. Lk 17: 11-19).
The Lord said to him: “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well” (Lk 17: 19).
This Gospel passage invites us to a twofold reflection. It first evokes two levels of healing: one, more superficial, concerns the body. The other deeper level touches the innermost depths of the person, what the Bible calls “the heart”, and from there spreads to the whole of a person’s life. Complete and radical healing is “salvation”.
By making a distinction between “health” and “salvation”, even ordinary language helps us to understand that salvation is far more than health: indeed, it is new, full and definitive life. Furthermore, Jesus here, as in other circumstances, says the words: “Your faith has made you whole”.
It is faith that saves human beings, re-establishing them in their profound relationship with God, themselves and others; and faith is expressed in gratitude. Those who, like the healed Samaritan, know how to say “thank you”, show that they do not consider everything as their due but as a gift that comes ultimately from God, even when it arrives through men and women or through nature.
Faith thus entails the opening of the person to the Lord’s grace; it means recognizing that everything is a gift, everything is grace. What a treasure is hidden in two small words: “thank you”!
Jesus healed 10 people sick with leprosy, a disease in those times considered a “contagious impurity” that required ritual cleansing (cf. Lv 14: 1-37).
Indeed, the “leprosy” that truly disfigures the human being and society is sin; it is pride and selfishness that spawn indifference, hatred and violence in the human soul. No one, save God who is Love, can heal this leprosy of the spirit which scars the face of humanity. By opening his heart to God, the person who converts is inwardly healed from evil.
