Fr. Roger J. Landry

Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington, New York

Retreat for Columbia University Students

Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

October 9, 2022

2 Kings 5:14-17, Ps 98, 2 Tim 2:8-13, Lk 17:11-19

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/10.9.22_CMA_Retreat_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* As we approach the end of our retreat on going Into the Deep: Learning and Living the Art of Prayer, we have examples in today’s readings of prayers of intercession, petition and thanksgiving, the attributes of faith and perseverance, and the reaction we should have to the encounter with God in prayer. They lead collectively to what our fundamental response should be to the whole retreat. Let’s go into the deep with the help of the Word of God.

* In the first reading, we see the healing of Naaman the Syrian. We get only the end of the story in today’s passage, but the whole miracle is key for us to grasp for our Christian faith. When this powerful Army commander of the King of Aram was diagnosed with leprosy, he and the King who loved him had no idea what to do. Previously in a raid they had captured a girl from Israel who had become the servant of Naaman’s wife. Having doubtless heard Naaman and his wife lamenting the situation, the girl said, in an example of intercession, “If only my master would present himself to the prophet in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.” The King told Naaman he should go and sent him, along with a letter of introduction and appeal to the King of Israel, with an enormous retinue as well as ten silver talents, six thousand gold pieces, and ten festal garments. The King of Israel, upon reading the letter, deemed it a provocation to war, since he knew he was not a god and had no means to cure Naaman of leprosy. When Elisha the prophet, however, heard about Naaman’s arrival and the King of Israel’s response, he said, “Let him come to me and find out that there is a prophet in Israel.” When Naaman arrived, however, Elisha, who obviously expected him, sought to test his faith. He didn’t even come to greet him. He simply sent a note saying, “Go and wash seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will heal, and you will be clean.” Naaman responded with anger, saying, “I thought that he would surely come out and stand there to invoke the Lord his God, and would move his hand over the spot, and thus cure the leprosy. Are not the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be cleansed?” And in his indignation, he began to leave. His servants, however, came up to reason with him. “If the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary, would you not have done it?,” they asked. “All the more now, since he said to you, ‘Wash and be clean,’ should you do as he said.” And so Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times at the word of Elisha and, as we see in today’s excerpt, his flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was totally cleansed.

* There are several lessons we learn from this in our Christian life, but one of the most important is to trust in the means God gives us. It might seem incredible, for example, that water over our forehead and the words,“I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” are enough to wipe away sin, make us God’s children, and fill us with the indwelling of the Trinity, but that is what in fact occurs. We might conceive of many other ways our post-baptismal sins might be forgiven than the Sacrament of Confession, like long years of difficult penances out of contrition, but Jesus wanted his mercy accessible and hence f...