Gospel Luke 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.”
Homily
Very often these days we refer to young people as the lost generation and it seems that we do not know how to find them.
The Gospel passage given to us by the church for our meditation this week gives us a clue as to how Christians, following the example of Jesus, can set about trying to solve the problem of the lost generation.
The Gospel story is about ten lepers on the border between Samaria and Galilee. Jesus is passing along that way, and they call out to him, Jesus! Master! Take pity on us. Jesus tells them “Go show yourselves to the priests” The story continues. Now as they were going away they were cleansed. As we analyse the story, we remember that lepers were the lost generation of their time. No one recognized their gifts and talents.
Jesus came upon the lepers on the border, or the margins of his country. The story does not tell us that the lepers asked for healing; perhaps they were too discouraged for that. They only ask that he have pity on them, that perhaps he would give them some of his time. Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priests, i.e. the authorities of the society. He sends them back into the community, and as they re-enter the community they are healed.
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That is also the experience of institutions like Servol. They recognize the potential in people considered lost, give them back a sense of their worth and sent them back into the community, and in that process healing comes to them.
This is a process that is accomplished through activities like soccer, music dance etc. How many more young men would be lost were it not for the professional soccer league in T&T, or the hoops for life programme?
And so the Gospel challenges us on several fronts. Are we willing to go out on the margins and encounter the lost generation? Are we willing to notice them and help them to re-enter the community? Are we willing to give time to institutions that can be a door for re-entrance to the community?
At the end of the Gospel passage, Jesus tells the one leper who has come back to say thanks, “Stand up and go your way, your faith has saved you.” This reminds us that belief in oneself can bring one out of despair; it can bring us out of terrible situations. Our task is to help those of the lost generation to believe in themselves and in a higher power.
We thank God today then for all those imitators of Jesus Christ, those saints who made it their lives’ work to seek out those on the margins. We think of John Bosco and his work for abandoned youth, and Damian of Moloki and his work with lepers. We thank God for People like Fr. Gerry Pantin, for Servol and the pro-football league and other such institutions. Without them our world would be much worse. And we pray that God will make us sensitive to the plight of that lost generation, and raise up among us many other people, willing to walk the margins of society, to help those of that lost generation believe in themselves and come to healing.
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God we thank you for the teaching of this Gospel passage. Help us to recognize the many boundaries which we erect, very often unconsciously, and are afraid to cross because of the prejudices with which we have grown. Give us the grace to be boundary breakers after the mould of Jesus so that we build the new community of Jesus, your son, where boundaries based on ethnicity, class, religion and financial and social status do not exist, and where all, the sinners, the blind, the lame, and lepers are welcomed and find healing. We ask this through the intercession of Mary our Mother and Jesus your Son. Amen
