by Orlando Hernandez

Five years ago I attended my first Catholic Charismatic prayer meeting. I was very much excited by all that music, praising, and shouting. I felt as if the Holy Spirit was right there “in my face.” A very fiery lay preacher spoke to us. She asked people from the audience to come up and thank God in front of everybody. There was silence. Nobody was coming up. Suddenly, I was there on the floor (with my bad knees!) yelling thanks to God for so many things, my wife, my grandchildren, my health, my faith, His sacrifice on the cross, the beauty of the world…and I don’t remember what else. The place remained quiet, and the preacher turned to the audience (I guess trying to shame them a little), and said, “This man here is the tenth leper!” Me, a leper? Gee, thanks! I had only a faint memory of that passage in the Bible. It has haunted me ever since.

In this Wednesday’s Gospel (Lk 17:11-19), Jesus is approached by ten lepers outside a village (they are not allowed there, of course). From a distance they cried to Him for mercy. The Lord “saw them” and instructed them to go show themselves to the priest. They walked away.

We are left to ponder what was going through their minds. Were they disappointed, and discouraged (go all the way to Jerusalem to fulfill the taxing requirements of Leviticus Chapter 14:1-20)? Or were they touched by His words of power and left with faith and hope? After all, they must have heard of so many healing done by Jesus already. Perhaps, even as they took two or three steps the miracle was already beginning to take place:

“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.’” (Lk 17: 14b-19)

It turns out that Charismatic preacher was giving me a very kind compliment. Ever since my conversion, I have always related to all those paralytic, bleeding, blind, foreign, and “unclean” characters in the Gospel. That was the condition of my soul before my Lord manifested Himself to me and I thank Him with all my heart just about every day.

But do I thank Him enough? Am I not also like the other nine lepers who never came back? Every day is filled with countless miracles from God. Just waking up every morning, to breathe in the life-giving air, to feel the light of the sun, to know that God loves me so much and will never let me go, to feel love in my heart…..I usually forget to thank Him for these gifts, along with so much that, for His own reasons, He has chosen to give me in my life. I just go about my day without any thanksgiving, and even begin to fuss and complain about all my petty problems, and trudge along the way, until He gently nudges me, and reminds me of His loving Presence.

Perhaps those nine healed lepers felt great gratitude towards Jesus and gave thanks to God in their own way, but they were thinking about going back to their families, even getting a job after all this time of isolation. Where would they get the money to buy the birds, the lambs, the yarn, the hyssop, the bran flour, the oil and other things for their rituals of purification by the priests, and so on? I truly believe that in spite of all this, the Lord was also with them. Last week, a reader of this blog (cenaclemary12) wrote :
“People have so many activities and responsibilities to fit in each day. Make the most of each moment as a gift of God.”
This is one of my goals as a Christian. This is my daily prayer:

Thank You, thank You, thank You, Beloved, King of Peace!

Orlando Hernández