Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C
Reflecting on Luke 17: 11-19
James Tissot, Healing of the Lepers at Capernaum, 1886-94
Will you do a spiritual exercise for me? Be quiet for a moment, and try to recall the last time you were sick. Maybe you had a bad cold. Think of that pounding headache, or the burning eyes, or the painful blowing of your red, red nose. Remember the misery of having to go to work, or make dinner, or answer e-mails when your body was screaming for sleep.
And now, remember the morning when your cold was over. You slept through the night. Your head was clear. You felt blessedly strong and full of energy.
Try to remember that delicious moment of delivery from illness. The migraine gone. The blood test negative. The lump dissolved. Live in that moment of gratitude now.
Imagine that poor Samaritan man who had contracted leprosy. What huge floods of relief must have coursed through him to hold out his hand and see that he was cured! Cured! He could return to his family. He could make a living for them once again. He could hold his new baby, or maybe his grandchild. Death and loneliness had circled ‘round him, but as he was traveling to show himself to the priest he realized that he was healed, and sorrow and sadness fled away.
If we could just live in that moment of gratitude every day we would break open every inch of distance we may feel from God. Can you remember how it felt to be healed of an illness? God lives right there, in the place where immense gratitude is stored. Offer that memory back to God. That’s where the heart of praise finds its endless source.
What memory do you have of being healed?