Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
10 October 2025
Sunday Reflections, 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, 12 October 2025
GospelLuke 17:11-19 (English Standard
Version, Anglicised)
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was passing along between
Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who
stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have
mercy on us.’ When he saw them he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the
priests.’ And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw
that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on
his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus
answered, ‘Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to
return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ And he said to him, ‘Rise
and go your way; your faith has made you well.’
I've told this story before on this blog, in homilies, and on retreats I have given because the incident in question had a profound impact on me. It happened on the morning of Holy Thursday 1990 atHoly Family Retreat House, Lahug, Cebu City, which is run by the Redemptorists. I had gone up there after breakfast to do some business and as I was going in a woman approached me asking for some help. I made an excuse as I entered.
When I was inside I could see the woman through the glass doors sitting on the step (in photo above), her daughter, aged 13 or 14, beside her and resting her head on her mother's shoulder. I could see that, like the two peasant girls in Millet's painting above, they were heavily burdened - but with tiredness and hunger.
My business didn't detain me and when I was going out the two stood up. I gave the mother enough to buy breakfast for the two of them. The daughter looked at me with the most beautiful smile I've ever seen and said,'Salamat sa Ginoo - Thanks to the Lord!'
The radiance of this girl's smile compared to the look of dejection she had earlier was like the contrast between the colours of the painting by Adolf Fényes and the darkness of that of Jean-François Millet above. What struck me profoundly was that she wasn't thanking me. She was thanking the Lord, and inviting me to do the same, because he had responded to her prayer and that of her mother, Give us this day our daily bread.
In the First Reading, which on Sundays and solemnities is always related to the Gospel, Elisha reacts very strongly to Naaman's gratitude after he was cured of leprosy: Then [Naaman] returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, 'Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; so accept now a present from your servant'.But he said, 'As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, I will receive none.' And he urged him to take it, but he refused (2 Kings 5:15-16).
Naaman was grateful to God for his cure but wanted to reward Elisha. In de Grebber's painting we see Elisha turning away from Naaman almost in horror. Perhaps he overreacted but he had a profound sense of the fact that it wasn't he who had healed the Syrian general but God whose servant and instrument he was. Elisha wanted only God to be praised and thanked.
And indeed it was a young girl, probably around the same age as the one I met in Cebu City, who had directed Naaman to the Lord through his servant Elisha. In the verses preceding those read today we read: Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife.She said to her mistress, 'Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.' (2 Kings 5:2-3 ESVUK).
The young girl in Cebu expressed her gratitude for what I had given her mother by praising God directly and by inviting me to join her in her prayer of praise and thanksgiving. In doing so she gave me a far greater gift than any that Naaman could have offered Elisha, a profound awareness that everything we have is a gift from God.
I had never met the girl and her mother before nor did I ever see them again. But that meeting has been for me ever since what I call an 'ongoing grace from God'. The girl would now be in her late 40s. Please say a prayer for her and her mother and for their family. And may we thank God each day for everything we have, above all for the gift of our Catholic Christian faith.
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the greatest act of thanksgiving - Eucharist - that we can offer to God.
Ave verum corpus, natum de Maria Virgine, vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine cuius latus perforatum fluxit aqua et sanguine: esto nobis praegustatum in mortis examine.
Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary, having truly suffered, sacrificed on the cross for mankind, from whose pierced side water and blood flowed: Be for us a foretaste [of the Heavenly banquet] in the trial of death!
Traditional Latin Mass
What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful (Benedict XVI).
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 10-12-2025 if necessary).
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1:4-8. Gospel: Matthew 9:1-8.
Entrance to Holy Family Retreat House, Cebu City
Peasant Girl Bringing Basket
Apostle Paul
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