First Reading - 2 Kings 5:14-17
Second Reading - 2 Timothy 2:8-13
Gospel - Luke 17:11-19
“The greatest disease in the West today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love.” — Mother Teresa of Calcutta
The words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta strike right at the heart. How many times, in such a crowded world, have we experienced that “inner leprosy” of loneliness? That feeling of being invisible, inadequate, or simply unseen? It is a silent pain that wears down the heart. Yet precisely there, where we are wounded, God speaks to us today. And He offers us a path of healing that runs through the stories of three men from Scripture—three journeys of faith that become gratitude.
Naaman, a powerful and respected general, suffered from leprosy. All his power could not buy him healing. When the prophet Elisha ordered him to wash seven times in the Jordan, Naaman rebelled—it seemed too simple, almost humiliating. But it was precisely there, in that humble obedience, that the miracle was hidden. We too, like him, often seek complicated solutions to our problems—extraordinary signs, spectacular answers. Yet God often works in the small, the ordinary, the humble gestures that seem insignificant. Healing begins when we stop demanding extraordinary miracles and trust the small step that God asks of us today.
But what can we do when healing delays, when darkness seems to prevail, when our prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling? In those moments, we are accompanied by the example of Paul, imprisoned for the Gospel, who writes from the depths of his cell: “The Word of God is not chained.” We too have our own chains—a family concern that robs us of peace, a job that drains us, an inner pain that will not heal. In those nights we may think God is absent, but Paul reminds us that God is at work precisely there, within our chains. He remains faithful even when our faith falters. And so, healing continues—unseen but real—in perseverance, in stubborn prayer, in love that endures even when the heart is wounded. It is faith that does not cling to success but to the Faithful One.
And then, when grace arrives, there remains one final step—the hardest and most beautiful: to return and give thanks. In the Gospel, ten lepers are healed, but only one returns. He was a foreigner, a Samaritan, and yet he understood that it is not enough to be healed in body; one must be saved in heart. Jesus says to him, “Your faith has saved you.” The other nine received healthy skin; he received a new heart. We too, if we look at our lives, see that every day God floods us with gifts—life, family, a meal, a friend who listens, the forgiveness we receive in the Eucharist. And yet, how often are we like the nine? So focused on what we lack that we forget what we have. Gratitude is not an optional feeling—it is the final medicine that transforms healing into salvation.
Perhaps faith, then, is just this journey: to trust in small things, to persevere in darkness, and to return to give thanks. To trust the small step that God asks of us today, to endure where we do not understand, and to recognize with gratitude what we already have. Before going to sleep, we could try a simple exercise: to recall three concrete things from the day for which to say “thank you.” It is a small gesture, but it changes the heart.
Lord Jesus, physician of our souls, grant us a simple heart to trust, a strong heart to persevere, and a grateful heart to give you thanks. Amen.
0 Comments