Homily by Deacon Vasyl Motrichenko on the Twenty-ninth Sunday after Pentecost

“On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samar′ia and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and said, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.’ When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.” (Luke 17:11–16).

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s Gospel we read about ten leprous men who turn to Jesus and ask him to heal them of leprosy, which is a serious disease. And Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to their priests. And while they were on the road, they were healed. But among the ten who were healed, only one Samaritan recognised his healing as a gift from Christ, which he received as a fruit of his faith and trust in the Lord and returned with thanksgiving. This part of the scripture presents us with an important aspect of human life, namely, that we need to give thanks for all good deeds. We should be able to thank God and our neighbours for all the good deeds. Because gratitude is an extraordinary manifestation of love for God or your neighbor. Seeing in his healing a special manifestation of Christ’s love, one man returned to thank Jesus for his healing. It is also important to note that only one Samaritan, who was an unbeliever, a Gentile, returned, while nine men from the chosen people did not. All ten men had good and necessary faith, because at the word of Jesus they set out on the road to be seen by the priests, because they had been suffering from a serious illness for a long time, and their lives must have been difficult. And on the way a miracle happened, and they were healed. If they had not had faith in the Lord, they probably would not have set out on the journey. But having faith, nine of them had no other virtue—gratitude for the graces they had received.

The Lord God gives each person different gifts, but the best gift God gives to a person is probably the life we receive through our parents. Health, both mental and physical, is also important, because we see that these people ask the Lord for mercy because of their illness. Surely, each of us receives countless gifts from God and our neighbours in our lives, and the Lord cares for each of us every day. But do we know how to thank the Lord for all His mercies done for us? Very often, in their weakness, people do not realise the great gift that is life, nor God’s presence in this life, nor His constant love.

St. John Chrysostom teaches us about gratitude as follows: “When God sees someone grateful for the past, He sends him even greater gifts. Let us, therefore, try to give God all the gratitude we can for the good things that have been given to us so that we may receive even greater ones… In short, just as we can never count the waves of the sea, even if we tried a thousand times, so we cannot count the various mercies of God that He has bestowed upon our race.”

Therefore, dear ones in Christ, taking this man from today’s Gospel as an example, let us always try to be faithful to the Lord and thank Him for all His mercies, for there is not a moment in our lives when the Lord forgets about us, when the Lord does not bestow His bounty upon us. Let our sincere daily prayer be our gratitude to the Lord for all his blessings, and let our righteous life be a manifestation of our faith and Christianity. Amen.

See also

November 5 St. Michael’s Day at CYM’s Home in Buxton October 26 Homily by Deacon Vasyl Motrichenko on the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost June 22 Homily by Deacon Vasyl Motrichenko on the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost