Twenty-Eight Sunday of Ordinary Time

October 12, 2025

Luke 17: 11-19

In today’s gospel, what is the thing that made everything else recounted in it possible. Remember the scene is set with the Jesus on his way to Jerusalem by the alternate route through Samaria. As he goes on his way, 10 lepers beg Jesus to have pity on them. It is at this point that Jesus has a choice to make. First, will he help them; second, in what way?

The lepers were about the most unwelcome people to any one at that time who did not have the disease. It made them unclean, that is, unfit for human company. And also, it made them ineligible to take part in any form of worship as a Jew, or as a Samaritan in their religion. No temple worship, no synagogue meetings, no Sabbath meals with family and friends; in other words, no life, except with their own kind on the literal fringe of society. They could not even come into a town or village.

So, just for Jesus to acknowledge them was risky. It certainly was not good for him to come into any contact with them whatever, since he would be considered unclean too. What should he do? Wave from a distance? Throw them some food or clothing? Ignore them altogether?

Jesus gives them an even better gift. Jesus gives them mercy. Though they don’t know it right away, he gives them healing; with that healing, their lives are completely changed. Now, they can go home to family and friends, and they can take part again in the worship of their God with other people. What Jesus does for them is a life changing event: He offers them a healing so complete that Jesus does not even refer to what he did as a healing. No, rather, “Stand up and go your way; your faith has SAVED you. Not simply healed you; but more radically, your faith has saved you. And the response of one of them was pure gratitude.

How often, perhaps each day, are we offered the chance to make it possible to a person to be saved? Do we even notice it? St. Augustine makes what I am referring to explicit when he tells us to rejoice and give thanks, because “not only have we become Christians, but we have become Christ.”

I read a story about an old woman in an extended care hospital which is truly remarkable. She had some kind of wasting disease, her different powers fading away over the march of months. A student of mine happened to meet her on an unplanned visit. The student kept going back, drawn by the strange force of the woman’s joy. Though she could no longer move her arms and legs, she would say, “I’m just so happy and grateful to God that I can move my neck.” When she could no longer move her neck, she would say, “I’m just so glad and thankful I can hear and see.” When the young student finally asked the old woman what would happen if she lost her senses of hearing and sight, the gentle lady said, “I’ll just be so grateful that you come to visit.”

Pope Francis is also always pointing out to us the power that our mercy can have on another. It can be an action so great that causes someone to turn his or her life around, or so small that it makes another feel like they have been noticed and given respect. But our showing mercy is a risk - we may be made a fool of, or taken advantage of; but a risk we cannot afford not to take.

Fr. John Tran