Hello everyone,
I have been busy preparing for finals with studying and projects so it has been about a week and a half since I have written. I am leaving tomorrow after my field education and my last final of the quarter to go home for a visitation, and then a funeral on Thursday. So I don’t have time to reflect a whole lot on the ending of my first quarter of seminary. It is amazing that it is over already, only 17 more to go… I hope to write something next week for reflection on this, I can’t make any promises.
For the blog post this time I thought I’d share with you what I am sharing with the people at the nursing home tomorrow. As I have said I go to a nursing home every Wednesday and in addition to room visits and taking communion to people’s rooms we have a communion service with host that has been consecrated by a priest at a previous Mass. At this communion service we go through the Church’s prescribed Mass readings for the day, and then either I or the other seminarian offer a reflection. Since we aren’t ordained it isn’t considered a homily, although you would think it was a homily if you just looked at it.
Below I have copy and pasted the readings for tomorrow (except for the Psalm, since I don’t refer to that in here). The first reading is from the Letter of St. Paul to Titus, the Gospel reading is from the Gospel of Luke. I think it is obvious enough where the readings stop and my reflection begins. Enjoy, and feel free to give feedback if you want, I’m always looking to improve.
Peace,
Adam
Reading 1
Ti 3:1-7
Beloved:
Remind them to be under the control of magistrates and authorities,
to be obedient, to be open to every good enterprise.
They are to slander no one, to be peaceable, considerate,
exercising all graciousness toward everyone.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deluded,
slaves to various desires and pleasures,
living in malice and envy,
hateful ourselves and hating one another.
But when the kindness and generous love
of God our savior appeared,
not because of any righteous deeds we had done
but because of his mercy,
he saved us through the bath of rebirth
and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
whom he richly poured out on us
through Jesus Christ our savior,
so that we might be justified by his grace
and become heirs in hope of eternal life.
Gospel
Lk 17:11-19
As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying,
“Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”
And when he saw them, he said,
“Go show yourselves to the priests.”
As they were going they were cleansed.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
He was a Samaritan.
Jesus said in reply,
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”
Then he said to him, “Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you.”
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This Gospel reading from Luke is so memorable that we could all almost proclaim it from heart. What am I going to talk about? The amazing act of Jesus’ miracle? Well, it is amazing, but no. Am I going to talk about how great it was of the one to come back to give God thanks, but terrible of the others to accept His gift without any acknowledgement? While there is truth in that, you have all heard those before…
I am going to speculate a bit on what those other nine did. Maybe they had been fighting leprosy for a long time and needed to go and check if their family was still intact. They may have had a shop that provided necessities to others in their community that they needed to see if they could salvage. These cured lepers may have gone to the temple to give thanks to God on their own, in the way that they knew. Maybe, just maybe they went to the priest as Jesus told them to. This was the necessary way for a Jew to return to society from these diseases, to show themselves to the priest to prove that it was gone.
I like to give these people the benefit of the doubt, sure they should have given thanks immediately, but maybe they did later to make up for it. Maybe they ended up squandering the opportunities that they were given by this second chance. But I like to think that this experience left them changed, and allowed them to grow in life.
These changes do happen. As Paul wrote in his letter to Titus, the first reading from today, even he was: foolish, disobedient, deluded, a slave to desires and pleasures, full of malice, envy, and even hate. Paul had an encounter with Christ and as he said “when the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done, but because of his mercy…” he would become an heir to Christ, in hope of eternal life.
We all have encounters with God, let us be sure to take some time out of our day to thank him, as the one leper did, but let us also allow His grace to change us as it surely did to Paul and Titus, but also hopefully to the other nine lepers.
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