Two things struck me about our first reading and our Gospel today. They both concern miracles of healing with
God reaching out to the lepers, healing them from that terrible disease. And, in response to these healing, the leper
Naaman in our first, and the Samaritan leper in the Gospel, give thanks to the
Lord. Leprosy was a very feared disease
throughout history. In fact, in the
Middle Ages in Europe, priests were enlisted to perform a special ceremony that
would separate the leper from the rest of the community. The leper often was required to have a
clapper or a bell with him that he would ring if a non-leper was approaching,
alerting the person to stay away. In 1873, a young Belgian priest who
was working in Hawaii volunteered to go to the island of Molokai, a place where
lepers were forced to live in isolation. He arrived on the island only with his cassock and his prayer book Damien knew that leprosy was a very
feared disease, but he knew that God was calling him to serve them. Damien wrote his brother saying – “I make
myself a leper with the lepers to gain all for Christ.” He built a church on the island as
his first course of action, and beyond that, he cleaned their sores and ulcers,
he helped build homes and furniture for them, and he made coffins and dug
graves. It was difficult, challenging work,
but Damien maintained an attitude of joy and thanksgiving by drawing strength
on daily mass and the Eucharist. Damien
writes: "Having the Lord at my side, I continue to be happy with
cheerfulness of heart and a smile on my lips." Father Damien eventually contracted
leprosy himself. Although he experienced isolation,
rejection and abandonment, as church and government authorities often neglected
to offer him the support he needed, he remained faithful to God to the end,
dying at the age of 49. Father Damien is now a saint and remains very loved in Hawaii, where a
statue of him sits in front of the Hawaii State Capitol building.
I thought about Father Damien in
conjunction with today’s Gospel, because not only did he reach out to the group
of lepers who were abandoned and discriminated against, not only did he offer
them Christ’s love and mercy, but father Damien also always lived his life in thanksgiving
to the Lord, even in challenging circumstances, even when he contracted leprosy
himself, even though he died from that terrible disease. We are all called to do what Father Damien did in his lifetime in our own way and
in our own circumstances: to live our lives in thanksgiving to the Lord and to
reach out to those who are lepers in our own society, to those on the margins. And giving thanks to the Lord in all
things is never easy.
We are all to give
thanks to the Lord, not only for the blessings he gives us, and for the grace
he gives us to meet our challenges in life, and those challenges in life can be
very difficult, can’t they? A friend of mine recently reminded me
what I told him once, that every morning I thanks to the Lord for the
opportunity to serve him and his people as a priest here in the Diocese of
Jackson, and I give thanks for all of my parishioners. I do this even when I have a tough day, and
believe me, we priests can also have tough days. A lot of time, life is all about
perspective, isn't it? There were ten
lepers in the Gospel who asked Jesus to have pit on them and their
situation. All ten of them were healed.
But only one of them came back to give thanks. In return, this Samaritan leper
received another blessing. Not only did
he receive healing of his leprosy, but in his faith he also was made whole both
body and soul, and received the blessing of salvation through this faith as
well. We dwell on a lot that is going on in our world – the crisis in Syria,
the government shut-down, a difficult world economy. We can dwell on problems and struggles in our
own personal lives as well. All those
things are real as well. But we are also
called to give thanks for the blessings we have, both in good times and in bad. And with a thankful and joyful faith, we
reach out to others, especially those on the margins. There are modern-day lepers in our own
society, those who need our compassion and care.
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