28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
2 Kg 5:14-17; 2 Tim 2:8-13; Lk 17:11-19
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
10 Oct 2010
It is interesting to ponder how a dispassionate and accurate observer of Catholic communities throughout the world, or the English speaking world would describe us.
There would be immense differences with the communities varying between the good and the indifferent, but what would be our better characteristics? Some characteristics come to mind quickly; people of faith, devoted to Christ and His Blessed Mother, prayerful, working to support family life despite the wounds, deep or slight, that exist in every family, loyal to one another, genuinely helpful to the poor, whether they be close by or overseas, etc, etc.
Would we be characterised as people who were grateful for their blessings, people who knew how to say thanks to God and to one another regularly? Or would some of us be numbered among those silly people who claim that they did it all by themselves? Or perhaps would some of us belong to another group who are genuinely grateful, but are too busy or preoccupied to say so? How many of us would belong to that small number who seem constitutionally unable to express their thanks, especially to those who are closest to them?
The story of the ten lepers is not a parable, nor an incident that tells us only about the Jews of Our Lord's time. It recounts an actual incident as Jesus was travelling through Samaria and Galilee, but the story tells us a lot about human nature. It is a story about ourselves, about the way we can become if we give into selfishness regularly.
This is a good gospel passage to use with younger children, and for all sorts of reasons. With our marvellous standards of medicine, we find it hard to imagine a society with no real hospitals, few effective medicines and where if there was a surgeon of any sort it was probably a second job for the local butcher.
In those days, and indeed until the nineteenth century, there was no cure for leprosy. Because it was contagious, the social consequences of contracting the disease were extreme. Lepers were dragged from their families and isolated, forced to live in communities on the edge of society and compelled to warn people of their approach. They were outcasts, objects of fear and probably the unthinking youngsters of the district would taunt them and throw stones at them.
We think of St. Damian of Molokai (the island in Hawaii) in the 19th century, a Belgian priest who went to live with the lepers who were isolated there. Until he came the island was a like a hell; people without hope, some of them without any pretence to dignity or self restraint. He brought hope and Christ's love to them, before himself contracting the disease.
There was no cure for leprosy then; much less in Our Lord's time.
Therefore a cure for leprosy was then a spectacular miracle. Today doctors can usually control and cure it with modern medicines. Do we ever stop to thank God for the blessings we enjoy with our modern way of life, for the spectacular achievements of modern medicine? As Christians, I think we should!
As this was such a spectacular miracle why did nine out of ten fail to return and say thanks to Jesus? I cannot believe that they were ungrateful. For the rest of their lives, they would have remembered Jesus with gratitude.
I suspect that they were so excited with their cure, so keen to return to their families and rejoice in their good fortune that they never thought to say thanks to the miracle worker personally.
Another couple of unanswerable questions relate to Jesus' unusual request that they present themselves to the priests. I wonder whether any of them refused to go, mumbling to themselves that as Jesus could not perform the miracle, why should they bother to go to the priest!
As they were cured on their way to the priests, I wonder how many continued on to do as they were asked and actually completed their visit to the priests. It is possible that the priests did not fare much better than Jesus. The only man who thanked Jesus was a foreigner, and a Samaritan, belonging to a race the Jews did not like.
The small regular courtesy of saying thanks to those who do us small favours is good training so that we are grateful for more important blessings, such as our faith. Knowing about the Son of God is an important reason for gratitude.
If youngsters are taught to say thanks when they are young, they are more likely to remain grateful as adolescents and young adults, when they become more aware of our failings as parents, teachers, priests, grandparents. Saying thanks and meaning it requires practice. It becomes easier if we start young and keep it up. Regular thankfulness should be one characteristic of every Catholic community.
Therefore today, one week before the canonisation of Mary MacKillop as Saint Mary of the Cross, we must remember to express our gratitude not only to the "Brown Joeys" and the "Black Joeys", the two different Josephite Orders; but to express our thanks to all the nuns who have given such high quality service, usually in quiet, unfashionable ways and places, since Catholic life began on this continent.
The different colonies had difficult beginnings, some like New South Wales as convict colonies, partly because the British could not export their prisoners any longer to the newly independent United States of America. The climate was harsh and the society itself raw and often violent. An early Spanish visitor was horrified to discover there was no Church in the settlement. Our St. Mary's was only opened in 1834, forty-six years after the First Fleet arrived.
Many good people worked hard to change this, but the nuns in particular were a marvellous force across the generations. Next week we shall salute Mary MacKillop and we will bless and unveil her new statute straight after Mass. But today we should pray in thanks for all nuns.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
