A Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

+ Leprosy, thanks to scientists’ diligent use of their God-given gifts, is now curable and is no longer a condemnation to a lifetime of social exclusion and physical suffering and degradation. But this was not at all the case when Our Lord cured the ten lepers as related in this morning’s Gospel. Their suffering was not temporary: their condition excluded them from society inflicting public humiliation on top of the dire physical consequences that the progress of the disease itself entailed. It is no wonder, then, that Our Lord wondered with disbelief that only one of the ten came back to render thanks for the monumental healing He had occasioned. But only one out of ten returned. It is perhaps one of the saddest episodes of the Gospel.
 
Before God became Man in Jesus the Christ and suffered and died on the Cross as the perfect sacrifice for our sins, and rose gloriously from the dead, the leprosy of sin—which brings destruction that, if not cured, endures beyond death for all eternity—had no cure. Those infected had no certain hope. There was no end to its effects, nor was there a foreseeable cure. Not, that is, until—as the Gospel of St John insists— “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Rightly do we bend our knees when we hear these words: they announce the coming of Hope Himself, who offers to all who believe in Him healing from sin—a gift far greater than the physical healing given to the ten.
 
We live in a world which will do anything and everything to avoid physical suffering and death, as we saw only too well in the now discredited but highly orchestrated worldwide shutdown of life as we know it under the banner Covid 19, including the social exclusion, indeed the excommunication, of the ‘new lepers’ who refused to subscribe to the doctrine of salvation by vaccination.
 
It is important never to forget this, nor indeed that high officials in the Church herself thus subscribed and even went as far as to impose this false doctrine upon others, whilst zealously forbidding the worship of Almighty God and the administration of the sacraments—forbidding, that is the administration of the cure for which Our Lord Jesus Christ became man. Not only do we live in a world where physical suffering and death are the only thing to be avoided (as if, in the end, that is possible!), but we must face the fact that this mundane cancer has spread throughout the Church herself. Prelates preen themselves before mirror of the world whilst the leprosy that is sin is ignored in servile subservience to the agendas dictated by the potentates of this world.
 
It is even more important that we never forget the teaching of the Letter to the Hebrews that “here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come.” (Heb. 13:14) Rightly do we seek to heal disease and alleviate suffering. Justly do we care for the frail and the elderly and afford them the dignity of a good and natural death. Society may reasonably require proportionate measures to prevent the spread of disease. Our Lord did cleanse the leprosy of the ten. But physical health is not an end in itself. Physical health is a good ordered, as this morning’s Gospel teaches, to the worship of Almighty God. It is given to us, or restored to us, so that we can more ably progress towards the eternal city, the “city which is to come.”
 
Such progress is made, of course, by seeking the healing of the leprosy with which our sins have infected us and are gradually eating away at our very being—by seeking Baptism if we are not baptised, or if we are, by going and showing ourselves and the state of our souls to the priest in the just and merciful tribunal of the Sacrament of Confession. For in these great sacraments we encounter He who became man for our salvation; He who suffered and died on the Cross out of infinite love for each one of us so that we might share in the victory over sin and death made manifest by His glorious resurrection. He waits for us to turn to Him and ask to be cleansed so that we may enjoy a healing of far greater importance than that of the ten lepers.
 
Thus healed our place is here, before the Lord in humble worship and thanksgiving for the graces we have so freely been given. Let us never forget that, as did the nine who failed to return to give thanks. For theirs was not simple ingratitude, it was a denial of all that was due, a refusal to take their rightful place. As any monk comes to know, it is simply right, it is as it should be, to sing the praises of God seven times a day and once at night (even on very cold mornings!) because of God’s mercy. (cf. Ps. 118: 62;164)
 
Our Holy Mother the Church does not require this of all her children. She simply insists that all are present at Mass—at the Offering of the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, that is of thanksgiving—each and every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation. Even in respect of this minimal requirement we might well ask: “Where are the other nine?” As we offer this Holy Sacrifice this morning, let us pray for our absent brothers and sisters in particular, that they too may take their rightful and due place here, before the Lord, in humble adoration for all that He has given us. +