Wednesday, November 13, 2013. 

Today's Liturgical Reading by Daily Flash, Goa.  

Wisdom 6:1-11; Psalm 81[82]:3-4, 6-7; Gospel : Luke 17:11-19. [Please share today's Gospel with family, friends/neighbors.]

Focus: 'He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked Him' (Luke 17:16)

It is easy for us, the privileged, to hold a sanitized Christianity, smug in the conviction that we 'keep the law'. Pope Francis, however, advocates a practical concern for the world's poor and marginalized (today's Psalm). He pays special attention to the economic problems which lead to impoverishment among millions. He speaks of our "greedy world". He exhorted the clergy in Rio to leave the comfort of their prestigious institutions and go to favelas (slums) to evangelise. 

Today's Gospel describes an encounter Jesus had with ten lepers. They kept their distance, but lawfully speaking they should not even have been there. That didn't faze Jesus - He sent them off to show themselves to the priest. We know what happened and how only a Samaritan returned to give thanks (Focus). Is it a coincidence that Jesus proposed the Samaritan leper, the Good Samaritan and the Samaritan woman at the well - despised 'outsiders' - as models of discipleship?

Can we apply the First Reading to ourselves? Many of us are privileged with comfortable homes, secure jobs, children 'doing well'. Yet we are often more greedy than grateful. We may mouth words of gratitude - as the servant whose debt was wiped off (Mathew 18:23-35). But we truly show our thankfulness when we go to Jesus present in the poor and serve them. 

Fruit: Let us show that we mean our gratitude by sharing a meal with an old or poor person.