Wednesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s scriptures give us an opportunity to think about the importance of God’s gifts of the sacraments to us - and to reflect on our own responses to God’s great gifts.
Paul’s letter to Titus (3:1-7) sets up a stark contrast between the time before we were baptised and the time of our “rebirth” or baptism! Once we were “foolish, disobedient… living in malice and envy, hateful ourselves and hating one another.” Yet our baptisms give us an invitation to new life in Christ, which enables a new perspective, a new way to live in the world: now we are peaceable and considerate, gracious, and “open to every new enterprise.” Note that we have to take an active role in living this new life.
Today’s Gospel reading (Luke 17:11-19) suggests a similar kind of new perspective. Jesus is healing 10 lepers. Just as he did in an earlier encounter with a leprous man (Luke 5:12-16), Jesus tells them to go and show their now-healed skin to their priests. The main point in this scripture is less that the men were made clean but more that only one man returns to give thanks. Jesus asks, “Where are the other nine?...Stand up and go, your faith has saved you.”
We might consider this cleansing miracle of the 10 lepers to be analogous to the cleansing we receive in baptism - a link between both scriptures. Today’s scriptures make me grateful, once again, for the gifts God has given us in the sacraments - especially in baptism, reconciliation, and anointing of the sick. These sacraments mark a specific moment when we, too, can receive God’s grace, a new perspective, and an invitation to respond to God’s graciousness.
Perhaps we respond with thanks, graciousness, or peaceableness. The responses Paul and Jesus are commending can seem kind of small, yet I suspect we know just how tough it is to live this out.
I am reminded of a moment just this past week. I was anything but peaceful - I was a great hurry, for I was running late. I was with my three-year-old walking to get to an appointment; I was walking about 5 steps ahead of her, exhorting her, “You can do it, honey! Just a few more steps.” And then I noticed- really noticed - that she was using all of her might to stumble along behind me, and how unfair it was, really, that I was trying to hurry her up in that moment. The peaceable thing, just then, was to slow down, to walk with my kiddo, and to realize that while we might be late, the world would not end. Just that - just that minuscule thing - changed my whole day and outlook, because not only was I walking with her, but I was peaceful in myself too.
Of course that’s the point: living in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus changes our perception of the world, and makes us be thankful and gracious, where maybe we once would have been “deluded” or even hating ourselves. Today, let us pray for God to offer us the same kind of cleansing miracle that Jesus offered to the leprous men, and let us respond with great thanksgiving!
- Jana M. Bennett