13th Sunday after Pentecost

Tomorrow is the 13th Sunday after Pentecost. We hear about the ten lepers being cured, with only one returning to give thanks. Is this Us? Do we receive a blessing of any kind and just say, "Thank God?" And, if we do, are we thanking the Triune God, or just a generic one?Our beloved Abbot Gueranger quotes Abbot Rupert of Deutz (1075-1129). About this Sunday, Blessed Rupert says:

'Every portion of the Office of the thirteenth Sunday bears on the history of that Samaritan, whose name signifies keeper; it is our Lord Jesus Christ who, by His Incarnation, comes to the rescue of man, whom the old Law was not able to keep from harm; and when Jesus leaves the world, He consigns the poor sufferer to the care of the Apostles and Apostolic men, in the house of the Church. The intentional selection of this Gospel(Luke 17) for today throws a great light on our Epistle, as also on the whole letter to the Galatians, from which it is taken. Thus, the priest and the Levite of the parable are a figure of the Law; and their passing by the half-dead man, seeing him, indeed, but without making an attempt to heal him, is expressive of what that Law did. True, it did not go counter to God's promises; but, of itself, it could justify no man. A physician who dies not himself intend to visit a patient will sometimes send a servant who is expert in the knowledge of the causes of the malady, yet who has not the skill needed for mixing the remedy required, but can merely tell the sick man what diet and what drinks he must avoid, if he would prevent his ailment from causing death. Such was the law, set, as the Epistle tells us, because of transgressions, as a simple safeguard, until such time as there should come the good Samaritan, the heavenly Physician. Having, from his very first coming into this world, fallen among robbers, man is stripped of his supernatural goods, and is covered with the wounds inflicted on him by original sin; if he did not abstain from actual sins, from those transgressions against which the law was set as a monitor, he runs the risk of dying altogether.'

In this parable Jesus gives, this leprosy is sin. One Person can cure it in us. Hopefully, we can be the one that gives thanks for what we have been given.

Our beloved Abbot again gives us something to think about: 'In the Church, as in God, truth is life and light, not a mere collection of formulas. If our Credo rings out so triumphantly through the aisles of our churches, and seems to force the very gates of heaven, it is because each of its articles is presented before God steeped in the blood of martyrs; from age to age it has gathered ever fresh lustre from the labours and struggles of so many holy confessors, chosen out of the human race to complete the body of Christ on earth.'

St. Alphonsus Liguouri finishes today's post with these words: '...It is not ingratitude to abandon a friend who leads you to Hell; but it is ingratitude to forsake God, Who has rescued you, Who has died for you on the Cross, and Who desires your salvation.'