Let's Help The World Get "soaked In Christ."

Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Course 2025

Every day we stand with the ten lepers of Luke’s Gospel, raising our voices in the Kyrie Eleison shouting “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us.” And in that prayer, if we truly repent of our many shortcomings, we are cleansed of every “venial” sin. With the one Samaritan in that group of healed lepers we spend the rest of Mass in eucharistia, praise and thanksgiving. It is an offense against the virtue of hope to presume on the mercy of God, but it is also a daily challenge for us, as our Offering prayer says, “that through these acts of devotedness, we may pass over to the glory of heaven, through Christ our Lord.”

The miracle described in our first reading today requires a little background. The Syrian general Naaman (Nay-uh-mahn) had won many battles against Israel, and in the process he kidnapped a little Israelite girl. At some point he contracted a skin disease which was thought to be leprous. The little girl, servant to his wife, suggested that the Israelite prophet Elisha could pray for healing. After some complicated diplomatic negotiations at the king level, Elisha and his retinue went down to Elisha’s house and sent word he would like to be healed. Elisha, not a prophet with a great “bedside manner,” just sent word for the leper to go dip seven times into the Jordan, truly at the time one of the filthiest rivers on earth. Naaman first refused, but after hearing the pleas of his servants—and here we pick up today’s reading—“plunged seven times into the Jordan”—and his flesh became just as perfect as the little servant girl’s. He gave thanks to God and testifies “there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel.”

When the ten lepers of our Gospel came to Jesus, the Master was in Samaria or Galilee, areas looked down upon by the Jerusalem elite. They knew the Law about leprosy. They did not try to get close to Jesus, but in a loud voice together asked, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” Like the prophet Elisha, Jesus did not raise His hand and pray over them. He told them to follow Torah, which in Leviticus 14 tells the healed leper to “show himself to the priest.” The ten don’t seem to have been instantly healed; they were cleansed on their way toward Jerusalem. The nine must have kept going—probably more quickly—toward the Temple priests. We lose track of them after that.

The one Samaritan was not welcome in Jerusalem, and the fraudulent temple in Samaria had been destroyed decades earlier by the Jerusalem rulers, so note what he did. He went back to the true priest and prophet, Our Lord Jesus, and like Naaman—also a foreigner—gave high thanks and praise to God, working through His begotten Son. His story is just one of millions testifying that salvation is not only for an exclusive elite, but for all who through faith enter into the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. All the ends of the earth have seen and are still seeing the salvation of our God.

This true priest, our High Priest, not many weeks later offered Himself as the victim-prophet on a Roman cross, and then after three days rose from the dead and later ascended into heaven to shower His Spirit on all believers. He is the one St. Paul and Timothy followed and even bore chains and ridicule and execution for. They bore it all in imitation of Christ for the sake of those in their churches chosen to obtain salvation in Christ and glory through their own suffering and death and resurrection.

This reality explains why we gather each week for thanksgiving. We have died with Christ through our baptism, our “soaking” in Christ, and so we will live with Him. Persevering through life and suffering we will reign with Him. He will always remain faithful. May the Holy Name of Jesus be praised forever and ever. Amen.