Gospel according to Saint Luke 17:11-19
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.”
Give thanks and give glory
Luis CASASUS President of the Idente Missionaries
Rome, October 12, 2025 | XXVIII Sunday in Ordinary Time
2 Kings 5: 14-17; 2 Tim 2: 8-13; Lk 17: 11-19
The venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979) says: From a spiritual point of view, anyone who prides himself on his intelligence, talent, or voice, and never thanks God for them, is a thief; he has taken God’s gifts and never acknowledged the Giver (Way to Happiness, 1998). This explains Jesus’ lament when he saw that only one of the healed lepers returned… He did not want to receive thanks; he says nothing of the sort. What saddens him is that the other nine did not give glory to God.
So, we are invited to reflect on what it means to give glory to God.
It does not seem easy, since if we review the etymology of the word “glory” in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew… we see very different meanings. To make matters worse, the concept of “glory” in this world is quite different, as it means something that is received, such as applause or praise.
So, what is Christ referring to today? How can we give glory to God?
By reflecting the divine light, his action in us. The Master already expressed it clearly: Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Mt 5:16). That is why Christ feels that he has given glory to the Father by faithfully carrying out the mission entrusted to him.
In this way, giving glory to God means demonstrating through our works how we carry out missions that seemingly surpass us, but which show how everything comes from Him: He chooses us for a mission and gives us the strength to undertake it.
That is why Christ was angry when he saw that nine of the healed lepers did not return to give glory to God, so that when those who knew them saw them, they would realize that the Lord had visited them and now they could live fully, with their families, in society, working and collaborating with the community.
As Pope Francis recalled (March 17, 2024), the fullness of glory was reflected in Christ not in the moments of performing his miracles, nor even in the Resurrection, but on the Cross, surprising as it may seem. The fact that we can live a life of total surrender, a fullness of ecstasy, despite our limitations, is to show divine glory. Jesus himself had to give up something of his life when he did good: when he had touched the lepers, because of people’s fear of contagion, he could no longer enter a city publicly, but remained outside, in deserted places (Mk 1:45).
That is why, when he sees his end approaching, he exclaims in prayer: I have glorified you on earth; I have finished the work you gave me to do (Jn 17:4).
In today’s Gospel text, it is precisely a Samaritan who recognizes in Jesus the true Way, the divine presence that changes his life. It often happens that what ends up uniting us (such as the leprosy shared by Samaritans and Jews) is something painful, but Providence uses it to show that we are truly brothers and sisters. On this occasion, the divine response is surprising in its promptness, for, as the Gospel text says, those lepers, “as they went away, were cleansed.” Other times, we complain inwardly because it seems to us that Providence will never respond…
But the truth is that the Holy Spirit responds immediately with one of his gifts, and sooner or later we notice its effects in our lives. As we said before, we are not the same. We feel capable of loving those who love us, we even resist calling them “enemies,” and we recognize in them an opportunity to give a special witness of forgiveness, a proof of love that we cannot give to those who love and understand us.
Just a few years ago, in an Indian village where the caste system was still in force, there was an unexpected and violent flood. Several men from the lowest caste approached a woman of high caste to help her and take her to safety. This woman, who in other circumstances would not have allowed anyone of low caste to touch her, now had to literally put herself on their shoulders to be saved.
—ooOoo—
We see something similar in the First Reading, when Naaman resists seven times to immerse himself in the Jordan River, but finally does so. And each time, he saw how he was being healed and his heart was also healed, eventually coming to believe fully in the true God and promising that your servant will no longer offer burnt offerings or sacrifices to other gods but only to the Lord.
This is an important lesson for us: every time we accept purification, whether promoted by the Holy Spirit or carried out by our own decision to renounce our judgments and our pride, He responds with new grace, with a change in our soul and in our life that makes me feel that I am no longer the same.
In the Second Reading, Paul passionately reflects on this experience, lived in his own flesh:
If we die with him, we will also live with him; if we persevere, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
In another look at the Old Testament, we remember the story of Job, a man who lived in prosperity, was upright and God-fearing; but in a dramatic turn of events, he loses his possessions, his children, and his health. That enormous suffering was not a punishment, but a mystery into which he knew how to enter, and in the midst of his pain, he did not curse God, but cried out, questioned, and struggled with his faith.
His friends come to comfort him, but end up judging him. However, the dialogue that ensues—though tense—is a shared search for the meaning of life.
Job dares to say to God: Why do you persecute me? (Job 7:20). His pain leads him to a more direct, more intimate relationship with God, from whom he receives no rational explanations, but who reveals his greatness and closeness to him. Job says: I have heard of you only by hearsay, but now my eyes see you (Job 42:5).
The Lord restores this saint, but the most important thing is not his material recovery, but the deepening of his bond with Him. Then Job intercedes for his friends, showing that suffering has made him more compassionate, more united with his neighbor.
That is the process of all purification: God does not send any evil, but uses all of it to bring us closer to Him and to our fellow human beings. The Jewish and Samaritan lepers, when they believed themselves to be healthy, when they felt pure, hated each other to the extreme, but that terrible affliction was paradoxically an instrument for them to come together to Christ, pleading: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! They called him by his name, that is, considering him a friend, a brother, someone they truly trusted. This is another lesson for you and me, who are full of doubts, who weigh up whether so many efforts, so many setbacks that do NOT provide us with immediate, visible, consoling fruit, are worthwhile.
A contemporary story. In August 2010, 33 miners were trapped 700 meters underground in the San José mine in Chile after a collapse. They had no way out, they were isolated, with little food and no idea if they would be rescued.
For 17 days, no one on the surface knew if they were alive.
Inside the mine, these men, of different ages, beliefs, and personalities, began to unite in desperation. They prayed together, shared what little food they had, and took turns keeping the lamp lit, a symbol of hope.
One of the miners, Mario Sepúlveda, became a kind of spiritual leader. He said in an interview after the rescue: There were 34 down there, not 33… because God was with us.
Finally, after 69 days underground, they were rescued one by one in an operation that moved the entire world. Many of them said that their faith was strengthened and that misfortune united them as brothers. Some who were not believers said they began to pray for the first time in their lives.
—ooOoo—
Today’s Gospel, which may seem distant from our own experience (leprosy, miraculous healings…), must not fail to be translated into the life of each one of us. Even the number of lepers, 10, represented in the Jewish world the quorum number, the people necessary for a valid synagogue session; for us, it means all of humanity, all of us sick with sin.
But this Gospel text is not just a lesson in courtesy and good manners. It is about recognizing that we are continually being forgiven, healed of our mediocrity, or at least invited to follow the path of change that leads us to a full, shared life, free from false securities. The ten lepers were healed, but only one of them, the Samaritan, accepted true salvation: Get up and go; your faith has saved you; Jesus tells him. That healing led him to “glorify God in a loud voice” and the ten who were healed, at least, to present themselves before the priests, to give glory to God according to the ancient and limited form of the Law.
Jesus emphasizes that the only one who returned in gratitude was “a foreigner,” possibly to show us that this capacity for ecstasy, for stepping outside of our overwhelming self-confidence, is present in every human being. Let us take note of this in case we ever dare to say hastily and dogmatically: “This person does not believe in God,” “This person has no interest in the spiritual life.”
_______________________________
In the Sacred Hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Luis CASASUS
President
