20211110 UNCONVERTED CONVERTED
10 November, 2021, Wednesday, 32nd Week, Ordinary Time
First reading | Wisdom 6:1-11 © |
Kings, your power is a gift to you from the Lord
Listen, kings, and understand;
rulers of remotest lands, take warning;
hear this, you who have thousands under your rule,
who boast of your hordes of subjects.
For power is a gift to you from the Lord,
sovereignty is from the Most High;
he himself will probe your acts and scrutinise your intentions.
If, as administrators of his kingdom, you have not governed justly
nor observed the law,
nor behaved as God would have you behave,
he will fall on you swiftly and terribly.
Ruthless judgement is reserved for the high and mighty;
the lowly will be compassionately pardoned,
the mighty will be mightily punished.
For the Lord of All does not cower before a personage,
he does not stand in awe of greatness,
since he himself has made small and great
and provides for all alike;
but strict scrutiny awaits those in power.
Yes, despots, my words are for you,
that you may learn what wisdom is and not transgress;
for they who observe holy things holily will be adjudged holy,
and, accepting instruction from them, will find their defence in them.
Look forward, therefore, to my words;
yearn for them, and they will instruct you.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 81(82):3-4,6-7 © |
Arise, O God, to judge the earth.
Do justice for the weak and the orphan,
defend the afflicted and the needy.
Rescue the weak and the poor;
set them free from the hand of the wicked.
Arise, O God, to judge the earth.
I have said to you: “You are gods
and all of you, sons of the Most High.”
And yet, you shall die like men,
you shall fall like any of the princes.’
Arise, O God, to judge the earth.
Gospel Acclamation | cf.2Th2:14 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Through the Good News God called us
to share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia!
Or: | 1Th5:18 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
For all things give thanks,
because this is what God expects you to do in Christ Jesus.
Alleluia!
Gospel | Luke 17:11-19 © |
No-one has come back to praise God, only this foreigner
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one of the villages, ten lepers came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, ‘Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.’ When he saw them he said, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ Now as they were going away they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This made Jesus 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.’ And he said to the man, ‘Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.’
UNCONVERTED CONVERTED
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [Wis 6:1-11; Ps 82:3-4,6-7; Lk 17:11-19]
In the gospel, St Luke recounts the healing of the ten lepers. Leprosy was the most devastating disease as there was no cure. It was not just physically debilitating but emotionally and spiritually depriving. Cut off from their community and banished, they were going through a slow death in all dimensions. We can imagine how desperate they were that they even entered the village where Jesus was to beg for healing. “They stood some way off and called to him, ‘Jesus Master! Take pity on us.'” They asked for mercy from our Lord. They evoked Jesus’ sympathy for the plight they were in.
The Lord, who always felt for the poor, the marginalized and the suffering, without hesitation immediately said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Aware that they would need the priest to certify that they had been healed of this deadly infectious disease, Jesus demanded from them faith in His power and co-operation with the human authority. It is notable that divine healing is often done through the human way, without much of a spectacle. God wants to heal us, but Jesus never performed miracles to draw attention to Himself; only to demonstrate the love and mercy of God. Jesus wants to draw us to God. This is a good reminder for those who seek healing from God for their illnesses but who refuse to cooperate with medicine and those who provide advise. But this is not the main point of the story of the healing of the ten lepers.
What is significant is how Luke compared the response of the Gentile leper with that of the other nine Jewish lepers. “Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan.” This Samaritan who was despised by the Jews, considered an outcast, worshipped at the wrong mountain, and not fully accepting all the Laws of Moses, was the one who praised God at the top of his voice upon finding himself cured, and returned immediately to the Lord, throwing himself at His feet and thanked Him. Jesus reacted by saying, “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.”
Then He said to the man, “Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.” It is true that all were cured but only the Samaritan was saved. One can be cured of one’s illness, as happens most of the time, but few are saved. In other words, one can be healed physically but it does not mean that he is spiritually and emotionally healed. He remains arrogant, ungrateful, lamenting, complaining, angry and demanding. After being cured of his illness, he continues to live an evil life, slandering and hurting people, cheating, trafficking drugs, and cheating. So one can be cured but not saved.
But the Samaritan was saved because of his faith in God and in our Lord. This faith was expressed in his relationship with God and our Lord. Upon discovering that he was cured, he remembered God. He praised God at the top of his voice. He was conscious that his cure was the work of God. He was grateful to God for restoring his health. And he also went back to our Lord to express his gratitude. This man had a relationship with God and hence he was saved, body, soul and spirit. His gratitude indicates the humility of his heart. He was not demanding, nor did he take his cure for granted. He acknowledged God and our Lord.
Ironically, the other nine Jews, supposedly to have access to God because they were the chosen race unlike the Gentiles, had no relationship with God or with our Lord. After being cured, their hearts were not one of gratitude and their minds were not raised up in prayer and thanksgiving to God for healing them. They were absorbed in themselves, rushing to return home to announce to their loved ones, certainly overjoyed that they were healed. Their happiness was earthly and worldly. So they were not saved because they lacked a real relationship with God. They are like many who seek God for healing, or for jobs and business contracts. When their prayers are answered, they forget all about Him, and lesser still, bother to render thanks and give praise and thanksgiving to Him. Such people treat God as a dispensing machine.
But there is a critique here by Luke. This evangelist was writing to the Gentiles. He was with St Paul in his missionary trips to the Gentiles. Part two of the gospel, which is the Acts of the Apostles, delineated how the gospel reached out to the Gentiles through the Christian missionaries, especially through the ministry of St Paul. In his view, God did not come only for the Jews but also for the Gentiles. Hence, St Luke recounted Jesus’ praise for the centurion whose son was at the verge of death. He also narrated the incident involving the Gentile Syrophoenician woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter of a demonic possession. What was remarkable was that the Gentiles were more receptive and grateful for the message of the gospel than the Jews.
This is the tragedy of so-called believers. Those of us who are enrolled as members of a religious organization often have this entitlement mentality. We speak of our rights as members of a church, or a church organization or ministry. We demand for our rights when we are not treated as a privileged class. We feel that we deserve more and the church, the parish or the organization has a duty to serve us because we are members. There are some Catholics who regard the church as their Father’s house and so they are entitled to use anything in the church or make use of the services without payment. Some contribute very little to the church when they could have given much more, but they demand much from the church and always demanding that they be given special preferential treatment.
The truth is that we do not see that our membership in the church or any organization is a privilege and not a right. If we are Catholics, it is because God has given us the faith to believe in Him and sent people to guide us to Him and be baptized. The church is fundamentally operated and serviced by volunteers. If we ourselves have never even volunteered to help in the church when we could, we should be grateful that there are people who have sacrificed their time and resources to serve the rest of the community. Instead of looking at everything as our right, we should have the mind of someone who feels undeserving of whatever is given to him.
This was the case of the Samaritan and many who are converts to the faith. Cradle Catholics tend to take their faith for granted. This is why they never bother to grow in their faith, to deepen their faith and to treasure what has been given to them. Instead, they seek God in other places and look for novelties. Those who have to pay a price for their conversion will cherish their faith, protect it and nurture it. For many converts, their journey to faith had not been easy, especially when they come from non-Catholic families. They would have faced opposition and even threatened severance of relationships. Gratitude springs from a grateful and humble heart of thanksgiving.
When we are not conscious that all we have come from God, we will not be grateful and will not exercise the gifts given to us well. This is what the first reading from the book of Wisdom is also warning those who have been gifted with authority and leadership. Of course, by extension, we all have been gifted with different talents and resources. But we abuse them when we fail to realize that such gifts given to us are meant for us to build the community, to build a fairer, just, compassionate and gracious society. People often abuse their gifts, their positions in life, their authority when they think they worked for it and are grateful to no one because it is all their hard work. Hence, they feel that they could exercise their gifts and authority the way they like, without consideration for the common good, the poor and those under their charge. Let us, as the author urges us, learn the wisdom of God in our lives.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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