Worshipping Outside the Temple

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Some homilies, or at least parts of them, stick in our mind.  Sometimes homilies greatly move us, and so we remember them.  Other times they greatly frustrate us, and so we remember them.  Sometimes we remember one part of a homily rather than the whole thing, and we might not even remember the point of the homily, though a part of it sticks out.
    Today’s Gospel exemplifies my point.  In major seminary we had a priest who preached on this Gospel passage and asked rhetorically: “What was Jesus’ problem?”  That phrase alone stands out as memorable.  He continued to preach that the nine other lepers had done exactly what our Lord told them to do: they went to the priests, at least we might presume this.  But the one, a Samaritan, returned to Christ to thank Him.  Christ had not asked them to come back and thank Him.  But He praises the faith of the Samaritan and questions why the other nine did not come back.  I honestly don’t remember where the homily went from there, nor the way that this priest resolved the issue.

    If we take seriously the Gospel, that question should bother us, even if maybe we ask it in a different way.  The nine whom our Lord healed did not disobey Him; in fact, they obeyed Him more directly.  To be fit for temple worship, one had to show oneself to the priests, to prove that the leprosy, whether what we call today Hansen’s disease or another skin ailment, had disappeared.  Christ was following the Law as given by Moses.
    The Samaritan did not follow the Law, nor would he have been expected to, as his people had broken away from Israel and worshipped false gods, which eventually led to their exile by the Assyrians and a syncretic new religion which mixed some of the Jewish practices with many of the pagan practices and beliefs.  Still, the Savior praises the Samaritan for returning and giving thanks.
    I would argue that Christ, in praising the Samaritan, affirmed His divinity, a divinity which the Samaritan seemed to recognize, while the other nine, ostensibly Jewish lepers, failed to recognize.  As I mentioned, leprosy made one unfit for worshipping in the Temple.  And the purpose of worshipping in the Temple was to give God His due.  The priests helped facilitate this, especially, but not only, for lepers, by bringing them back in.  But the lepers, all ten of them, didn’t need to go to the Temple to worship God; they had the opportunity to worship God by returning to the God-Man who had healed them.
    Now, there had been healings of leprosy in the Bible before Christ.  But only two.  The first happened when Moses pleaded for his sister, who contracted leprosy when she started to speak against Moses’ holiness and his marriage to a Cushite woman.  Miriam questioned why only Moses could speak for God.  So God afflicted her with leprosy.  Moses pleaded for her to receive healing, and God cured her after having her wait outside the camp for seven days (a kind of excommunication, as she was cast outside of God’s people until she learned the error of her ways).  The second healing happened when Elisha commanded Naaman, the commander of the army of Aram, to wash in the Jordan seven times.  After he had done this, Naaman received healing.  In both these instances, neither Moses nor Elisha did more than intercede for the lepers.  But in the Gospel we heard today, while our Lord told the lepers to show themselves to the priest, it was clear that He had healed them as they went on their way.  So our Lord did more than simply intercede: He cleansed them, a power which only belonged to God in the Old Testament.  
    So in order to return to worship God, the lepers didn’t need to be able to enter into the Temple precincts.  They simply needed to return to the one who had healed them: God-with-us, the Incarnate God and Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus Christ.  But the Jewish lepers didn’t realize this.  The Samaritan, who could not have gone beyond the Court of the Gentiles in the Temple, could not have encountered God in the holy place, which was open only to Jewish men, realizes he has encountered God in Jesus and returns to thank Him.  

    There was, of course, another Samaritan who had encountered the Incarnate God.  And while I don’t know where the seventeenth chapter of Luke, which we heard today, lines up in time with the fourth chapter of John, which is the passage about the Samaritan woman at the well, one can presume that the latter encounter was temporally the earlier encounter.  And perhaps the Samaritan man had even heard, from afar, about the woman who came to believe that Jesus was the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, and then realized that the same Christ had healed him, just as the same Christ had told the Samaritan woman how to worship: neither on that mountain in Shechem nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit and truth.  And so the Samaritan man starts to do what Christ told the Samaritan woman to do: to worship in spirit and truth, no longer only in the Temple, but wherever the God-Man was.
    Do we worship God in spirit and truth?  Do we glorify God, not only in this temple, but everywhere we encounter Christ?  Certainly, God dwells here in a particular way, and we need to come to Mass, not merely pray at home, in nature, or through a screen.  But having fulfilled our Sunday and holyday obligations, do we also worship God for the wonders He does in our daily lives, no matter how big or how small?  Any work of God gives us reason for worshipping God, even if it’s simply providing us with enough money to buy a good meal, or giving us a green light when we’re in a hurry, or sensing the presence of God and an answer to a question that we have asked God.  Yes, certainly come back to this temple to worship God, but do not neglect to worship and thank God right where you are at then.  Otherwise, you’ll be like the nine lepers who were chastised by Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Repaying God

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    For many young people, what got them through the COVID pandemic and the isolation that came with it was the sitcom “The Office.”  In one episode, Dwight, the Assistant to the Regional Manager, decides that he wants people to owe him, so that he can get his office frenemy, Jim, fired.  In the ubiquitous one-on-one interview with the camera crew, Dwight says, “Can’t a guy just buy some bagels for his friends so they’ll owe him a favor which he can use to get someone fired who stole a co-manager position from him anymore?”  Unfortunately another salesman, Andy, hates to be in debt to anyone.  So he starts finding ways to return the favor, thus not owing Dwight and thwarting his plans.  In Andy’s interview, he says, “You give me a gift, BAM! thank you note…You do me a favor, WHAM! favor returned.  Do not test my politeness.”  They both then go back and forth trying to give and return favors in pretty comical ways.
    In our first reading and Gospel we hear about people giving thanks for what God has given them.  Naaman receives healing from God for his leprosy, and one of the ten lepers whom Jesus healed returns to Jesus to thank Him.  Naaman even goes so far as to take with him “two mule-loads of earth” so that he can offer sacrifice to God on holy ground, even back in his home country of Assyria.
    While we’re not quite at the Thanksgiving holiday, God reminds us today that we owe Him thanks.  He reminds us, not as a Catholic guilt trip, but because He made us and He knows that we have a built-in desire to thank those who have given us gifts, and most especially the one who has given us everything.  Gratitude helps us live up to our potential as humans.
    But so often we pretend as if what we have comes from our own doing.  Yes, we do cooperate in our own excellence, but all that we have comes as a gift from God.  It starts with our life, which we do not arrange.  Even if a couple seeks to conceive a child at a time when they suspect conception could happen, it only happens by God’s will.  Then our family forms us, but they are also a gift from God.  And we naturally have some gifts and talents, which are also from God.  Some of those we choose to develop, but our ability to develop them is also a gift from God.  And we often take advantage of certain opportunities that come our way, but that also is a gift from God.  The only thing that God does not give us is sin; that is only from our making.  Everything else is either given to or allowed for us from God.  But do we thank God for those things?  Do we thank God not only for the big events and opportunities in our lives, but also for the things that we so often take for granted?
    Our attendance at Mass on Sunday is one way that we give back to God.  The word Eucharist, the sacrament which Mass makes possible, comes from two Greek words meaning “to give thanks well.”  In the Mass we give thanks to God for all the natural things He gives us, but especially for the supernatural gifts He gives us, like the possibility of salvation, and the grace to say yes to His will and live in a way that make us truly happy and prepares us for heaven.  God, strictly speaking, owes us nothing, and yet gives us all we need for eternal happiness.  Certainly that deserves some means of thanks.  
    The virtue of religion, the virtue by which we offer service to the Divine (to use the definition from the Roman writer, Tully), is the acquired habit, the repeated purposeful good act, of giving back to God for all He has given to us.  St. Thomas Aquinas notes different etymologies of the word religion, but connects it to the Latin word religare, to bind together (think of ligaments which bind bone to bone), and quotes St. Augustine who writes, “May religion bind us to the one Almighty God.”  God binds us to Himself, not because of any need, but because of His great love and generosity.
    And yet, how our sinfulness and ingratitude manifests itself when it comes to attending even just weekly Mass, which is part of the way that we fulfill the third commandment to keep holy the sabbath.  Obviously, you are all here.  And yet the numbers are pretty atrocious in the general Catholic population counting those who attend Mass each Sunday and Holyday.  How sad that so many cannot give one hour to the God who has given them everything, and even gives them the Body and Blood of His Son (presuming they’re in a state of grace) to sustain their spiritual life!
    But let’s go deeper so that we’re not just pointing out the splinter in our neighbor’s eye or casting stones at others when we ourselves are not innocent.  How do we treat the Mass?  With young children this can be difficult, but do we try to arrive five or ten minutes early for silent prayer with God?  Do we look forward to Mass as my opportunity to spend time with God, or do we begrudgingly go so we don’t go to Hell (and yes, you can go to Hell simply from skipping Mass on Sundays and Holydays)?  Do we do our best to pay attention and participate interiorly and exteriorly through silent prayer and responding when appropriate?  Are we upset if Mass is one second longer than the usual Sunday 60 minutes?  Do we leave Mass, having just received the Sacred Body and the Precious Blood of our Lord, and think to ourselves, ‘I didn’t get anything out of that Mass’?  Living the virtue of religion goes beyond simple attendance.  God deserves our best each Sunday, which, granted, is slightly different for everyone.  But there are probably ways that we can all grow deeper in gratitude to God.
    God has given us everything, even those things that we cooperate with God’s grace and the talents He gave us to earn.  Are we like Naaman and the Samaritan leper who insist on thanking God?  Or are we like the nine lepers who walk away without any acknowledgement of the one who gives us gifts?  God grant that we thank Him, not only with our voice on Thanksgiving Day, but with our voice, mind, and heart each day of our lives and especially every time we come to Mass.

Being Restored to Worship and Family

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of my professors at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit was Fr. Earl Muller, SJ.  Now, I know the Jesuits get a bad reputation, sometimes very much earned, but Fr. Muller, even with all his quirks, was a very faithful, orthodox professor.  I remember him preaching on this Gospel, and approaching the account in a way that I have never considered.  We usually dive right in to the fact that we should say thank you, and those other nine lepers who were healed were simply rude.  But Fr. Muller had us examine our Lord’s words.  What did He say?  “‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’”  That’s it.  Nothing more.  Never did Christ say, and then come back to me and say “thank you.”  In fact, the Samaritan doesn’t even make it to the priest, as our Lord commanded him, but runs back to Christ and thanks Him.  Yet, our Lord praises the Samaritan’s faith, and seemingly puts down the other nine. 
    As I first sat down to compose this homily, I immediately went to gratitude.  After all, the Samaritan is praised for returning to thank Jesus, whom the Samaritan acknowledges as God.  And I’ll likely get back to that point.  But first, we should look at what was happening, which would have caught the attention of any early Christian who had any knowledge of the Jewish law.
    Leprosy was not only a skin disease (it may not have been Hansen’s disease, as we now call it, but could have included any number of skin maladies).  Leprosy, besides being an illness, also made one unfit for any kind of temple worship.  If you could not be around people, there was no way you could go to the temple and worship God.  You were cut off from the practice of your faith in its greatest sense.  You were also cut off from your family, which, to any Jew, was everything.  After all, the Jewish people themselves were, first and foremost, the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, aka Israel.  The nation was basically the twelve tribes.  And yet, as a leper, you had no share in that family, and so you really had no people, no nation, to which you belonged.  You were totally cut off from the main ways in which people found belonging.
    The old law had given the priests the authority to determine if the leprosy was truly cured, to act both as those in charge of worship, as well as members of the tribe of Levi, the family of Israel.  The priests were the ones who could re-attach the leper both to worship and to family/nation.  So our Lord, as one who came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it, sends the lepers on their way so that they could be returned to worship and family.
 

   But this Samaritan, who had no share in either the worship or the family of Israel (recall that the Samaritans were, as far as worship goes, heretics, and as far as family goes, the crazy uncle that you don’t invite to family gatherings or even talk to anymore), he returns to thank Christ for what had been done.  And the Savior praises him for it.  As my old professor, Fr. Muller, said to us, rhetorically, “What was Jesus’ problem?”
    Christ, throughout the Gospels, is creating a new law (see Matthew 5); redefining family (“unless you hate father and mother you cannot be my disciple”); and claiming to be the object of worship (“the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath”).  And it is this Samaritan who gets that, somehow, even though he was separated from the Chosen People.  Somehow, this Samaritan recognizes that it is Christ who will restore him to proper worship and make him a part of a new family, those who follow the Lord.  Perhaps he had spoken to the Samaritan woman from Sychar, who had dialogued with Christ and heard Him that that the day was coming when true worshippers would not worship in Jerusalem or at Jacob’s well, but in spirit and truth.  Perhaps he had heard of our Lord saying that whoever hears the word of God and observes it is a mother, brother, and sister.  But however it happened, the Samaritan came to recognize that the belonging that usually was found in temple worship and being restored to the family of Israel was possible through this man, the God-Man.
    God is the one who gives us belonging through Christ.  Christ is the one who broke down, as St. Paul says, the old barriers between Jew and Gentile, making them both one through the Blood that Christ shed on the cross.  Christ restores us to worship through His forgiveness, which we receive in the Sacrament of Penance.  In that case, the priest, acting both in the name of Christ the Head and the Community, restores us to worthy worship and to belonging to the family of God. 
    And for that, we should be thankful (I told you I’d get back to this point).  Thanksgiving should come as naturally to us as breathing.  It doesn’t necessarily, but that’s the goal, because everything is a gift.  Nothing that we have has not come from God, either willed purposefully or allowed.  The only thing that we can claim ownership of is our sins.  And so we are invited to give thanks to God, for His mercy endures forever.  Psalm 136 (135 in the Douay-Rheims) is the perfect example of this.  The Psalmist praises God for His work of creation and redemption, and after each word of praises says, “for his mercy endures forever.”  So for us, we can and should go through our day or week, thinking about what God has done for us, “for his mercy endures forever.”  Maybe it’s our family and friends; maybe it’s our job; maybe it’s an easier drive to an appointment than we expected; maybe it’s a vacation; for our parish; for our opportunities to grow; for God’s strength when we avoid sin; for God’s mercy when we fall into sin and repent.  Even for our crosses we should thank God, because they draw us closer to Him if we unite them to the Cross of Christ. 
    When we recognize what God has done for us, it should lead to thanksgiving, like the Samaritan, who does not follow our Lord’s word to the letter, but understands that what the priests were supposed to do, not of their own power but as a way of recognizing what God had already done, our Lord did.  Today I invite you to give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Mass and Gratitude

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
   One of the cartoons I would watch growing up was “Scooby Doo.”  For those who aren’t very familiar with the series, it follows a group of friends along with a dog, Scooby Doo, who solves mysteries, especially when aided by Scooby snacks.  While I haven’t watched the show in some time, I seem to remember that there was always some twist at the end, where one of the people they encountered earlier in the episode ended up being dressed up as a monster or a ghost, trying to scare and intimidate someone for some reason.
    Today’s first reading and Gospel accounts would have seemed like such a twist to those who heard the story.  For the Jews hearing about Elisha, they would have been shocked that Naaman, a pagan, would have been healed by God, and then really shocked that he wanted land so that he could worship the true God, rather than his pagan gods, on the soil of the Promised Land.  And for the Jewish Christians hearing about how the ten lepers were healed, but only the Samaritan, the non-Jew, returned to thank Jesus, the shock would have likely been similar.  In neither of those cases was the result expected: pagans were not often considered as likely for conversion, and Samaritans were supposed to be a heretical mix of Judaism and paganism, so they weren’t thought of highly, either.
    And yet, that’s what happened.  When Naaman encountered God through the prophet Elisha and the healing that Elisha performed, Naaman tried to reward Elisha, but then asked simply to be able to worship the true God.  And when the Samaritan, whom Jesus healed of leprosy, realized what had been done, he returned to thank God, while the others simply went about their business. 
    Gratitude happens most easily when we encounter someone who offers us something that we want or need, and we realize the value of that which we received.  When a friend calls or texts to help us out in difficult times, we are grateful.  When we receive a gift for which we asked, or maybe even we didn’t ask for it, but wanted it and received it, we are grateful.  When a neighbor, colleague, or even a stranger does something that makes our life a little easier, even if it’s something as simple as holding a door or raking the leaves up in our yard, we are grateful. 
    But gratitude is a virtue, which means it is a practiced piece of our character, a disposition to act in a particular way based upon many occasions of acting that way.  Virtues take practice for them to become second-nature; they don’t start off that way in most cases.  And so you display gratitude even when you get underwear for Christmas, or when your birthday gift isn’t exactly that item you wanted, or even when the execution of assistance ends up making life more difficult.  In order to be thankful people, to have that virtue of gratitude, we have to give thanks.
    Throughout the month of October, our diocese has each parish count the number of people who attend Mass.  Since 2012, our average attendance at Mass as dropped from 876 people, to 395 people in 2018.  That’s a decrease of 55%.  There are certainly a lot of factors that go into it, but part of that decrease goes to why people go to Mass.  I hear it from both youth and adults: Mass is boring; I don’t like the music; I don’t like the preaching; it’s too long.  The common thread in all of those answers, and even more that I’m not mentioning, is that the self is the center of importance.  There is something about the Mass that doesn’t appeal to me, whatever it is. 
    But the Mass is an act of gratitude.  In fact, the word Eucharist comes from two Greek words which mean to give thanks well.  The Mass is our sacrifice of praise, offered to God, for what He has done for us in the past week.  It is our sacrifice, and yet is acceptable because we unite it to Christ’s perfect and acceptable sacrifice of praise that He offered on the cross.  The Mass is our opportunity to practice the virtue of gratitude, even when it’s difficult, which means that we’re growing in virtue.
    And the key to gratitude is that it’s not about me.  Being grateful is precisely about the other and what he or she has done.  Maybe we did get underwear for Christmas that we didn’t really want or need.  But we say thank you because the other person wanted to express their affection for us, and we want to acknowledge that goodness in the other person.  Maybe someone helped us out when we were having a rough day, or week, or month, or year, and we want to acknowledge the time they took out of their own schedule to focus on us.  Gratitude, if true, does not care about what I get out of it.  Its only concern is that the other is affirmed in the gift they gave.
    Why do fewer people go to Mass?  Because we’re ungrateful.  When we don’t acknowledge the gifts that God gives us throughout every moment of our life, of course we don’t care to take time to say thank you to God at Mass.  When, instead, we live in an awareness of just how much God gives us, then we should desire to say thank you to God.  And even when maybe we feel that urge to stay home, or watch a game, and skip Mass because it takes effort, we realize that we want to express to God just how grateful we are for what He has given us.
    It was certainly a plot twist, a surprise, when the two pagans were the ones who gave thanks to God after encountering His gift.  What is more surprising is when those who claim to follow Jesus don’t return each week to thank Him for the many gifts He has given us.  Don’t be ungrateful to God.  Give thanks to the Lord for the gifts He has given us in this sacrifice of thanksgiving of the Mass.