A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin
Find today’s readings here.
“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 17:17-19)
Jesus’ encounters with Samaritans must have been surprising to anyone who heard about him. This Jewish carpenter should not have any association with those Gentile people, yet again and again we hear stories about “good Samaritans,” both in his parables and in the miracles he worked for people. Today we even have the term “good Samaritan,” but the concept would have seemed an oxymoron to the Jewish people of Jesus’ day. God had decreed very specifically that the Chosen People are the closest to God’s heart.
Today, Jesus heals the ten lepers. The only time I (and probably many people reading this) have seen any lepers is in “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” and I cannot imagine that their irreverent depiction reflects the lives of real lepers, those who were totally ostracized from society and had no hope of a cure or a reunion with their friends and family.
First, as he always does, Jesus cures indiscriminately, not caring whether these lepers are Gentile or Jew, only that they have faith in him. He tells them to go to the priests, and perhaps the other nine lepers are simply following his orders, going straight there. But the tenth, the Samaritan, knows something is different about this man who has just healed them, returning and glorifying God.
If I were one of many cured of a debilitating and humiliating disease, would I return immediately to thank the one who healed me? Sometimes I think I am too much of a rule-follower to go against his command to go to the priests.
Often these signs of faith in Jesus or obedience to the Gospel are best performed by foreigners: the leper in today’s Gospel, the Good Samaritan who helps the man on the side of the road and the Samaritan woman at the well with whom Jesus speaks. Often we are too stuck in our ways, what we know to be the “right” way, that we forget about how doing the right thing sometimes means doing the difficult thing, the unusual thing—being the foreigner in the situation.
Whether that is spreading the Gospel through our actions at the office or school, or having a meaningful conversation with someone who is ostracized, or thanking God for his help in situations where we could easily lay all the success on our own actions.
I am always “the foreigner” in the situations I am in today solely because I am an American in Germany. But it often seems that I am “the foreigner” in that I practice my religion among a remarkably secularized society. There are so many people with negative experiences of religion, and I want to be the opposite, a positive voice for the church, such that my friends can get to know me as a kind and gracious person (I try!) and then be pleasantly surprised at my religiosity as well. It is the “foreign” thing to do in this case, and I couldn’t be happier to be the one separate from the crowd, the Samaritan in others’ lives.
Today, I want to be the foreigner going against the grain, giving thanks to God and glorifying him even when it is anathema to the others around me.
