At least twice a year we are called to meditate on this miracle with which we are so familiar. Luke 17:11-19  

We know that it is about the need for showing the type of gratitude which is due to Jesus for what he does in our life as our Lord and God. 

However, if we remember that the original setting for just about any passage of the Gospel is Eucharistic, we might discover a new way of looking at this miracle and benefit from it when, in the past, we might have turned to the next page a bit too quickly. 

We soon discover a story that fits well in any corner of the world, in any situation of pain, in any era. 

While Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, i.e., he is nearing his paschal mystery of passion, death and resurrection, there is a makeshift, improvised community of broken people united by their misery (leprosy) more than by anything else. 

Leprosy has brought them together beyond the instinctive barrier separating Jews from Samaritans.  The members of this community of outcasts agree, of one accord, that they must seek Someone outside their group who will have pity on them. 

Due to their total helplessness, their only hope for a change must be sought outside their group. And it is found in Jesus, the Master. 

This is the very same intuition which led Naaman to seek a cure of his leprosy outside of Syria, from the God of Israel. (cf. 2 Kings, 5:14-17) 

Today, this ought then to be also our attitude as we walk into our church for the breaking of the Bread. We ought to come here with the deep-seated conviction both of our helpless, stagnant core of sin and of hope for eliciting God’s compassion. 

In our modern-day Eucharistic celebrations, we start our liturgy with a candid, humble admission of sinfulness, of helplessness. 

We accompany that with a faith-based expectation of thorough, all-encompassing healing.  

From one Sunday to the next, we might not know exactly what part of us needs immediate, intense attention, but we are certain that the Lord knows, and we count on his mercy for a miracle that perhaps remains hazy for lack of details. 

Now, in here, just like back then, his Word is so powerful that we do not need anything else to fill our hearts with hope and spontaneous joy. 

In a sense, we too are “on our way to Jerusalem.”  However, what is Jerusalem without Jesus? What is Jerusalem before our Lord and Master climbs mount Calvary and rises from the dead? 

We might be puzzled by Jesus’ reaction to the fact that the nine former lepers do exactly what he tells them to do: they go to show themselves to the priests. 

So, how should we interpret his reply? “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” 

Could it be a slight reproach? Yes! It must be a reproach about our occasional failure to realize that our Eucharistic celebrations, our giving thanks to God, place us, every single time, without fail, into a new order, the order of the Kingdom open to everyone, to Jews, to Samaritans, to Gentiles alike. 

Our Eucharist, our giving thanks to God makes sense only, exclusively with Jesus and in Jesus.  And the giving thanks is for his having pity on us. 

Speaking of pity, of compassion, biblical scholars tell us of a startling, yet comforting fact, a quite revealing nuance. 

Pity, compassion, is exclusively a feminine attribute because it is a cognate of the noun WOMB. 

Thus, our community gathers around the Tables of the Word and of the Bread to give thanks to God for his pity, for his compassion, for his being as gentle, as tender, as pity filled as the most loving mother. 

Thus, our community gathers around the two Tables (of the Word and of the Bread) to give thanks for Jesus who is the physical, touchable incarnation of the Father’s mercy and compassion, especially wherever and whenever our sores, our wounds are most painful. 

Thus, our diverse, multiracial community gathers around the two Tables, as one Body, as one heart, in Jesus and with Jesus, so that any fear of separation and neglect is allayed. 

 And, after Holy Communion, in turn, we are expected to become gentle, tender, forgiving, pity-filled towards those who call upon us to show them a little of that care and mercy that the Lord has extended to us, time and again, and for which we must feel consistently grateful.