Ten Lepers Fr Nicholas Carr

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ.

Glory forever. Today's Gospel reading from Luke

tells us about a group of ten lepers. They met

Jesus as he entered a certain village, and they

called out to him from a distance, since as lepers

they could not come close. They could not enter

the town, and so they met him where they could.

As they came close to him, they spoke. They said,

Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. They called

out to him. They had this disease, this skin

disease, and they didn't know what else to do

or where else to go. with this flash of wisdom,

they came to the Lord. For they had heard of

what had happened, how others had been healed,

how there was hope for them, that perhaps they

too could get past this disease, this physical

manifestation of sin, this thing that kept them

away from Jewish society and isolated from fellowship

with people. So these ten, they came to the Lord

Jesus and they said the words, Jesus, Master,

have mercy on us. He had healed others, perhaps

he would heal them. And Jesus heard their plea

and he had mercy on them. And he said to them,

go show yourselves to the priests. For though

he had already determined to heal all of them,

they needed to be declared clean by the priests

so that they could reenter into Jewish society.

And they did as he said, and all ten were healed.

And yet only one of those ten returned to give

thanks to Christ, to the Lord. And he was a Samaritan.

And Jesus said, were not ten cleansed, but where

are the nine? Were there not any found who returned

to give glory to God except this foreigner? And

he said to him, arise, go your way, your faith

has made you well. All ten received physical

healing, but the nine missed out on a much greater

healing. greater blessing that of being thankful

their heart didn't have the blessing of joy that

comes when we thank god saint theophon has said

for what is prayer prayer is the raising of the

mind and the heart to god for praise and thanksgiving

and beseeching him for the good things necessary

for soul and body so that true prayer will contain

more than just a request it will have thanksgiving

for what god has given us and for what he will

give us when we truly trust in the lord and just

like the one leper we need to come to jesus for

healing and then with a heart of thanksgiving

Walk away. Walk into life with that heart full

of love for others because we have loved the

Lord and thanked him. What about us? What about

our lives? We know what our Lord and God and

Savior Jesus Christ has done for us. He has healed

us from spiritual leprosy. He has given us forgiveness

of sins. He has provided a way of salvation for

us so that when we, like the ten lepers, cry

out to him, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us,

we are asking him to heal us of this spiritual

leprosy and to forgive our sins and to restore

us to a right relationship with God. St. Gregory

the Theologian says of Christ Jesus our Lord,

the worse that we might receive the better. He

became poor that by his poverty we might become

rich. He accepted the form of a servant that

we might win back our freedom. He came down that

we might be lifted up. He was tempted that through

him we might conquer. He was dishonored that

we might be glorified. He died that he might

save us. He ascended that he might draw us who

were thrown down through the fall of sin to himself.

The Lord has had mercy on us. And now we have

that choice. Will we be like the one? Or will

we be like the nine? The one was thankful and

filled with gratitude and thus experienced the

joy of that thankful heart. A bad place to be

is with an ungrateful heart, for the fruits of

ingratitude are a complaining spirit, depression,

anger, possibly envy, and all these vices. But

if we find ourselves with an ungrateful heart,

do not give up hope. because God can turn it

around for us. All we need to do to help make

these vices into virtues is to turn to God and

say, Thank you, Lord, fill in the blank. Thank

you, the Lord, for whatever you can thank him

for. And keep thinking of things that you are

thankful for. And keep thanking the Lord, and

that ungrateful heart will change. Why will it

change? Because we will have taken our eyes off

of ourselves and we will have placed our eyes

upon God. And when our eyes are upon the Lord,

how could we not be thankful? How could we not

realize what he's done for us? Jesus, Master,

have mercy on us. Thank you, Lord, for making

a way for our salvation. O Lord, continue to

sanctify us and prepare us for the kingdom of

heaven. Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory to heaven.