Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C | Dominica hebdomada vegesima octava (XXVIII) « Per annum », Anno C
9 October 2022 in the year of our Lord
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 voices, 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." |
Κατά Λουκάν Ευαγγέλιον 17:11-19 11 Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ πορεύεσθαι εἰς Ἰερουσαλὴμ καὶ αὐτὸς διήρχετο διὰ μέσον Σαμαρείας καὶ Γαλιλαίας. 12 Καὶ εἰσερχομένου αὐτοῦ εἴς τινα κώμην ἀπήντησαν [αὐτῷ] δέκα λεπροὶ ἄνδρες, οἳ ἔστησαν πόρρωθεν 13 καὶ αὐτοὶ ἦραν φωνὴν λέγοντες· Ἰησοῦ ἐπιστάτα, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς. 14 καὶ ἰδὼν εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· πορευθέντες ἐπιδείξατε ἑαυτοὺς τοῖς ἱερεῦσιν. καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ὑπάγειν αὐτοὺς ἐκαθαρίσθησαν. 15 Εἷς δὲ ἐξ αὐτῶν, ἰδὼν ὅτι ἰάθη, ὑπέστρεψεν μετὰ φωνῆς μεγάλης δοξάζων τὸν θεόν, 16 καὶ ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ πρόσωπον παρὰ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ εὐχαριστῶν αὐτῷ· καὶ αὐτὸς ἦν Σαμαρίτης. 17 ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν· οὐχὶ οἱ δέκα ἐκαθαρίσθησαν; οἱ δὲ ἐννέα ποῦ; 18 οὐχ εὑρέθησαν ὑποστρέψαντες δοῦναι δόξαν τῷ θεῷ εἰ μὴ ὁ ἀλλογενὴς οὗτος; 19 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· ἀναστὰς πορεύου· ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε. |
Fr John Lankeit's homily :
Like other kids growing up in the Catholic Church in the 1970’s, I’m a product of those sappy “hugs and guitars” Masses, and CCD classes featuring felt banners which told us that God loves us, but which never showed us how that love actually intersected with the messiness of our lives in a credible way. It’s a miracle that I became a priest, let alone stayed Catholic, considering the pathetic pablum that was passed off as the Catholic faith during my formative years. I didn’t even know what Eucharistic Adoration was until I relocated to Phoenix from Seattle—19 years ago—at the age of 33!
The first time I experienced Eucharistic Adoration was back in 2000 with then Father Jim Wall—now the Bishop of Gallup—who, at that time, was a young associate pastor of St. Theresa Catholic Church. A small group of like-minded guys who thought we might be called to the priesthood had gathered one evening at Fr. Wall’s invitation.
I thought the plan was to get together to eat and talk about seminary and priesthood, and here we were in a tiny, stuffy chapel praying before a gold stand holding the consecrated Host, with billows of incense smoke filling the chapel. I sat there for an hour, fidgeting and wondering what I was supposed to be doing.
I knew what the Eucharist was, but I didn’t know what Eucharistic Adoration was!
What a difference 19 years makes!
Now, I pray a Holy Hour every day...unless I’m prevented from doing so. And many of you here at the Cathedral pray a consistent weekly Holy Hour—same day, same hour, every week—and have done so since day one, when we established our Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration chapel here at the Cathedral in June of 2012.
When I was in San Diego on vacation in late August, I did a Google search of the Catholic parishes in the vicinity of my friend’s house to locate one that had a Perpetual Adoration Chapel. I found such a parish and went to their chapel late one afternoon.
I felt like I was in a nuclear reactor of prayer. During that hour, more than a dozen people came to pray silently before our Eucharistic Lord. There were young people...old people...and everyone in between. I was amazed...inspired...and encouraged by this faithful remnant of humble Catholics who are just like our devoted adorers here at the Cathedral—the kind of silent, anonymous saints whose love for Christ has carried the Church through even her most turbulent history, year after year...decade after decade...and century after century.
If you were to listen to the news—or even to some Catholics in the Church today—you would think that the Church is falling apart faster than a pair of Walmart jeans. Many Catholics wring their hands—and hide their faith—as society labels the Church as a hateful, judgmental, medieval institution because she will not endorse society’s attacks on marriage and family...or condone the obliteration of image of God in the human person—created male and female.
And yet, a faithful remnant in the Church remains so intently focused on Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration that they can’t be bothered with our so-called “tolerant” society’s rabid intolerance for our Catholic faith. They simply keep their eyes on Christ, while the world rages around them—and, sometimes, at them. Some people—including many Catholics—think such devotions as Eucharistic Adoration died out with Vatican II. They are dead wrong.
As with the Eucharist, there’s a similar distortion of the Sacrament of Confession today. In some parts of the world, there are even efforts to make the secrecy of the Confessional illegal.
Unscrupulous politicians today think that they can bully a Catholic priest into revealing the content of a Confession by force of law. They forget—or maybe they’ve never known—that our own priestly souls are at stake when it comes to guarding the Seal of the Confessional. They don’t understand that faithful priests are prepared to go to prison or even to die before willingly divulging anything we hear in a Sacramental Confession. Given a choice between going to jail or going to Hell—a faithful priest will take prison bars over pitchforks any day.
But confusion about Confession—what it is...and what it’s for—even exists among Catholics within the Church. Many Catholics believe that Confession—or at least the need for it—was abolished by Vatican II. But the Second Vatical Council would have needed the authority to abolish sin itself, because eliminating sin is the only way to render Sacramental Confession unnecessary.
As someone born just two years after the close of Vatican II, I remember detractors of Confession back then calling it the “Catholic car-wash”. Catholics—these critics complained—could do and did do whatever they wanted all week and then just go to Confession on Saturday so they could receive Communion on a Sunday...only to start the sin cycle all over again on Monday.
But here again—as a priest—I see a holy reality on a regular basis that such critics are wholly oblivious to. So many devout Catholics consistently make sincere Confessions and seek genuine holiness on a regular basis, that I laugh at the dire predictions of the Church’s demise when I see God so obviously at work in so many faithful souls. The Church may get smaller in the short term, but it will remain holy in the long-term...because of these faithful few.
Today’s Gospel provides important insight into what drives faithful souls to return—again and again—to experience the Lord’s mercy in the Sacrament of Confession. Let’s look at the sequence of events in today’s passage:
As [Jesus] 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!” (Lk 17:12-13)
Here, we have ten individuals who recognize that Jesus can help them. So, they call out to him. In our day, this would be akin to a person who confesses their sins directly to Jesus in prayer—as so many Protestants—and far too many Catholics—believe is sufficient for the healing of the soul and for growth in holiness.
Continuing, we read:
...when [Jesus] saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” (Lk 17:14)
Jesus commanded the ten to comply with the Law of Moses which required a priest to examine lepers to determine whether or not their disease was still present and, thus, a threat to others. If the leprosy were cured, then the person could be admitted back into the community. But why did Jesus—God in the flesh—require the extra step of examination by a priest when he had both the power and authority to fix it all in one shot? Well, it has to do with human nature, in general and gratitude, in particular...not to mention the divine wisdom of Jesus.
We see this play out in Jesus’ encounter with the lepers. After Jesus instructed them to show themselves to the priests, the Gospel tells us: 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. (Lk 17:14-16) The choice of words in this particular translation is instructive. It says all ten were “cleansed”. But one of them realized he had been “healed”. Why the distinction between “cleansed” and “healed”? One way of interpreting this distinction is that “cleansed” represents an external action, while “healed” touches on the internal.
There’s a parallel here with the Sacrament of Confession. Some Catholics may, indeed, treat Confession like a car wash—with only external effect, but no deep interior conversion. In my experience, this attitude is rare. Most people I encounter in the Confessional genuinely desire to be healed of their sins at the roots...not just to treat the external symptoms.
While Jesus can forgive sins directly, he nevertheless established a Sacrament where a penitent is commanded to show his or her soul to the priest through the confession of sins.
You can see where and how Jesus laid the foundation for the Sacrament of Confession in Chapter 20 of John’s Gospel, verses 19 through 23.
But here’s the kicker in today’s Gospel:
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.” (Lk 17:17-19)
Here again we see the word “cleansed”. For all ten, the physical evidence of leprosy was no longer visible. But Jesus speaks of salvation when he says to the one grateful foreigner, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”
All ten were cleansed externally. But this man was healed internally. All ten lepers eventually died—and with their death—the physical benefit of being cleansed of leprosy also died. But only one according to this account—had his soul saved.
Now, let’s bring this full circle—considering again—from a wider angle this time—both the Sacrament of Confession and the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
Let’s start with the Eucharist. There are many people who consider reception of the Eucharist a matter of entitlement. They knowingly persist in grave sin and still receive Holy Communion. Or perhaps it’s better to say they “take” Holy Communion rather than receive it. The most egregious cases are unfaithful Catholic politicians who publicly and obstinately promote laws that directly contradict the teaching of their own Catholic faith. Their most common areas of public defiance are abortion and so-called “gay marriage”.
Some of these very high-profile Catholic politicians—and we all know who they are—publicly defy the teachings of their own Church and still insist on taking Holy Communion.
In some cases, spineless bishops and priests willingly give them Holy Communion—claiming to not want to “politicize” the Eucharist.
But here’s the catch...
Catholic politicians who obstinately persist in publicly scandalous sinful acts—like promoting abortion and unnatural marriage—receive absolutely no grace—no benefit whatsoever—from taking and consuming the Eucharist. In fact, for such a person, consuming the Eucharist is a form of spiritual suicide. Here’s what St. Paul’s wrote to the Corinthians:
Whoever...eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. (1 Cor 11:27-29)
To withhold Holy Communion from such notorious sinners, then—far from politicizing the Eucharist—is, rather, an act of charity toward them, for in withholding the Eucharist from a person who publicly and persistently defies Jesus, the minster refuses to participate in the assisted spiritual suicide of the unrepentant sinner and encourages them, instead, to come to their senses...and to come back to Christ...on Christ’s terms...not their own.
There’s a similar distortion of the Sacrament of Confession. People who go to Confession for superficial reasons—treating Confession like a “Catholic car wash”—may fool themselves, though they do not fool God. St. Paul wrote to the Galatians:
Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. (Gal 6:7-8)
Here it is good to recall Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisee in whose home he dined the night that a sinful woman had entered the house and showed her extravagant gratitude to Jesus for his mercy on her:
Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”...[T]urning toward the woman [Jesus] said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” (Lk 7:39, 44-48)
The parallel between the sinful woman and the Samaritan leper should be obvious.
Both had immense gratitude for Jesus’ mercy...and they showed it.
And both received much more than a superficial cleansing.
Their sins were forgiven, and their souls were healed!
So, no matter what criticisms an outside observer may spout about the Sacrament of Confession, those who experience Jesus’ mercy in the Sacrament know the unrestrainable joy that comes this personal encounter.
Not just in the privacy of one’s own mind...but in the Confessional!
Jesus told the ten men with a skin disease, “Go show yourselves to the priests” (Lk 17:14).
And he tells you and me—with our sin disease—to do likewise.
To some—especially those who choose to keep their distance from Jesus and remain in their “sin disease”—the Sacrament of Confession may look like a car wash.
To those of us who have been forgiven by the Lord in the Sacrament of Confession—it is our salvation...and our joy!
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