Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Healing Worship

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 10.09.22 | Bishop Robert Barron

[MurphsLaw]

Luke 17:11-19

Friends, today’s Gospel recounts the Lord’s healing of ten lepers,
only one of whom comes back to give thanks. Leprosy frightened people in ancient times,
just as contagious and mysterious diseases frighten people today.
But more than this, leprosy rendered someone unclean
and therefore incapable of engaging in the act of worship.
It is not accidental that the person responsible for examining the patient in ancient Israel was the priest.
The priest’s job was to monitor the whole process of Israelite worship,
very much including who could and couldn’t participate in the temple.

What is so important about worship?
To worship is to order the whole of one’s life toward the living God,
and in doing so, one becomes interiorly and exteriorly rightly ordered.
To worship is to signal to oneself what one’s life is finally about.
Worship is not something that God needs,
but it is very much something that we need.

[MurphsLaw]

+++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." +++