Sermon notes – By Roy Bradbrook and Father Basil Summer

Homily – 12th Sunday of Luke
Sunday January 19th 2014

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit

Today’s Gospel reading may be short but it contains two powerful messages. The first is to convey the ultimate person and powers of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus is met as he walks into a village by ten lepers, who somehow have sensed His divinity and power because they address Him as ‘Master’ and beg for His mercy to be upon them. We are told that the lepers, ‘stood at a distance’ and we have to remind ourselves that in those Biblical days, leprosy was a dread disease probably the worst there was and an almost certain death sentence. A disease without cure, very contagious and those suffering from it were treated as pariahs and outcasts, literally the ‘untouchables’.

Notice the phrase the lepers use when they address Him, ‘Jesus have mercy upon us’ ; the Kyrie Eleison that we say so many times during the Liturgy. But this is not a semi-automatic rote response. This is a heartfelt plea for Divine intervention and healing. They are saying that they know that you, O God , have the power to heal all my afflictions.

The Gospel goes on to tell us that through their supplications and their belief, they were indeed healed. We may often forget the enormous unmeasurable power of Jesus but we should remember always that this power is always there for us, especially when we receive His Body and His precious Blood in the Eucharistic Sacrament

The second point is also to do with power but in this case it is the power of thanksgiving. We go on to read that though all ten were cleansed, only one came back to Jesus, ‘praising God with a loud voice’. Not only was he the only one but he was not even a Jew. He was a Samaritan which made Jesus ask why only this man, this foreigner, was thankful for this wonderful gift of healing, truly a gift of life. Why is it that even today, we see so many, who profess not to be Christians or indeed have any faith, still show much more everyday love and compassion for their fellow men than do so many people of avowed faith?

Again going back to the Eucharist, the word that means a meal of thanksgiving. We should always seek to be like the Samaritan leper and be truly thankful that while Jesus gave him earthly life when He healed him, Jesus freely gave us the supreme gift of Eternal Life with His death on the Cross and Third Day Resurrection.

So let us always remember these two powers, the power of Jesus that is always there for us and the power of our thanksgiving that we should strive to always exhibit, as we say to Him in our prayers each day, ‘Kyrie Eleison – Lord have mercy’

Amen

The Gospel of Luke 17:12-19
At that time, as Jesus entered a village, He was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and said: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When He saw them He said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’s feet, giving Him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then said Jesus: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And He said to him: “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”