OMELIE / Omelie EN

12 ott 2025

12/10/2025 - 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

12/10/2025 - 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

First Reading 2 Kings 5:14-17 from Psalm 97 Second Reading 2 Timothy 2:8-13 Gospel Luke 17:11-19

At first glance, it seems that the central theme of today's readings is gratitude. Naaman, healed of leprosy, wants to be grateful to the prophet Elisha, who invited him to wash seven times in the Jordan River, and thus found himself as healthy as a fish. The foreign leper, healed by Jesus along with nine other Jewish lepers, returns to give thanks. In both cases, however, gratitude becomes recognition of the God who has shown himself to be so merciful and powerful as to cancel the death sentence represented by leprosy. The God of Israel and the God of Jesus is the God who restores, gives life back, and resurrects.

Naaman is so convinced that the God who healed him is the only true God that he decides to take with him so much soil from Israel that he can make it his place of prayer in the pagan country from which he comes and to which he returns, so as to manifest to everyone his new faith in the God who changed his life, indeed gave it back to him. He thus becomes a pioneer, a missionary.

The Samaritan returns to Jesus to praise God aloud: he recognises that the God of Jesus has manifested himself in his healing. He wants to reveal this to everyone.

In both cases, faith is praised and held up as an example for the Jews themselves. It is not enough to belong to the people who profess faith in the God of Abraham: this faith must become the soul of the individual believer, so that he may find a way to bear witness to the God who has blessed him.

When Jesus heard the plea of the ten lepers and sent them to show themselves to the priests of the temple, so that they might recognise their healing, he intended not only to perform an act of mercy towards suffering people, but above all to give a sign that he himself was recognised as the one sent by the Father, God's gift to a world in need of salvation.

Those who do not recognise Jesus as God's gift and as our life, even if their bodies are healthy, remain discontented, insensitive, devoid of deep joy, devoid of the true meaning of existence. Jesus is disconcerted by the fact that only one returns to him to recognise him: the other nine, even though they have benefited, even though they have received a clear sign, continue their journey in this world without the joy of praising God. In them, his work did not bear the hoped-for fruit: in fact, they are content with the healing of the body and do not realise that their lives have remained in darkness, immersed in the selfishness that continues to make the world go round in heavy and useless toil.

The fact that nine out of ten forget to give thanks and worship is a painful and significant sign. Most people, as in Noah's time, are distracted by things, work, and the concerns of earthly life: they do not realise that true joy comes from an inner life lived in close relationship with God and with the one whom God has sent.

St Paul learned to live in Jesus and for him. He knows that man has no knowledge of what life is until he becomes one with the Lord and Saviour. For this reason, he never ceases to urge his disciples, today Timothy, to remain steadfast in their faith in Jesus, not only in words, but by participating in his death through their own efforts.

He himself knows that he is an example to them, even though he is in prison precisely because of his proclamation of the Gospel. He is in chains, “but the word of God is not chained!”, he says with joy and confidence. Thinking of his sufferings—and we thinking of the sufferings of many brothers and sisters persecuted for our faith—the disciple is encouraged to remain steadfast in manifesting his faith, even though the whole world is against him.

Today's Eucharist will be our thanks to God the Father for giving us Jesus. And with this thanksgiving in our hearts, we will continue to love, so that we too may be a sign and witness that he and he alone is the blessing, the life and the salvation.