Paul's Reflections Twenty - eighth Sunday of the Year - C. 10th October, 2010

10th October, 2010      Twenty - eighth Sunday of the Year - C

A writer, whose name is not known, once declared….

 

“Happy are they who grieve not

for what they have not,

but give thanks for what they do have.”

 

“A boy by the name of Germaine Gardner was born with one eye, no nose, and a misshapen face. Doctors said he would be severely disabled and likely with little chance of intellectual development or action.  His mother wanted him to die.

 

Four years later…..   this young child was sitting in the day room of a Medical centre where he has received countless hours of treatment….   He was  playing a "thank-you" piano concert for 200 hospital employees. His musical talent was discovered accidentally when he was still a baby. He now has a memorized repertoire of nearly 200 classical compositions….. (by the way…….Germaine calls pop music "junk") and has played with world-famous singer and piano player…. Stevie Wonder.

 

The four-year-old's "thank-you" concert makes me ask, How grateful am I for what I have, and how do I show it?

 

It’s food for thought on this weekend which is also mental health awareness week…  whilst this boy had physical disabilities, they also thought he might have intellectual and emotional ones too…  but this turned out to be not the full picture. In any case, we keep in mind all people with physical and emotional illness, in our prayers today…

 

 

And the gospel today, is a very fitting reminder of the importance of being grateful for the gifts that God has given us…

 

So often it is all too easy to remember and stew over the things that have gone wrong…..  the burdens and struggles……   but it can be at the expense of forgetting and minimising all the wonderful things that Go provides to us.  There are so many things to be thankful for in life, that its so important to take the time out to remember them, and to give thanks…..

 

I have mentioned before how its always a nice thing to regularly sit in prayer, with a prayer journal and a pen and spend some time writing down any and every blessing, grace and joy that has come our way this day, or in our life….  To list only the positive things, the things we are grateful for… the countless gifts God has showered upon us….  It will certainly  keep our perspective….

 

We think of the gospel featuring the ten lepers….    One of the lepers was a Samaritan…  Samaritans were hated by the Jewish people…..   they were not accepted ….  What this shows is that these other Jewish lepers have accepted a Samaritan among them; pain has brought them together. There is no distinction amongst these outcasts……..   Also, Jesus accepts people with no distinctions…….  They are all in need of healing, and he gives them what they need…..

 

However, the Samaritan is the only one who comes back to give thanks. Considered inferior and half pagan, he is the only one who opens his heart to the Lord (v. 15) and thus expresses the real content of purity.

 

The clean of heart are not those who observe rules and appear irreproachable, but rather those who are consistent;……. and act with humility, according to the overwhelming and generous love that they have received.

 

In this text, the Samaritan is the one who remembers Jesus — a grateful man, doubly marginalized as a leper and as a "foreigner". Thus, while Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem where he will be killed at the hands of the defenders of formal purity, Jesus gives life: "your faith has made you well." The grateful Samaritan has to get up and go on his way (v. 19). Having been able to recognize the love of God, from that moment on he must give freely what he has received freely.

 

Remembering Jesus Christ as St Paul asks us to do in the second reading…… (2 Tm 2:8) implies our embracing Jesus' testimony of love without legal or religious boundaries.

Let us pause and take some time, over the coming week…..  to think of those, in our own time, who are in the same situation as lepers were in Jesus' time. 

 

Who are the people who are outcasts, rejects…..   people left out and forgotten……  to be shunned… who are these people and what are their needs today?

 

We must also embrace Jesus' preference for the poor and the despised.

 

The word Eucharist… which means ‘thanksgiving’  is not only what we do here on Sunday… it’s the people we are called to be in Christ…  people who ‘always and everywhere…  give thanks!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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REFERENCES:

 

FR. PAUL W. KELLY

MISSION 2000  – PRAYING SCRIPTURE IN A CONTEMPORARY WAY. YEAR C. BY MARK LINK S.J.

SHARING THE WORD THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR. GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ.