28th Sunday in ordinary time. Today’s readings: 2 Kings 5:14-17; Psalm 98:1, 2-3, 3-4; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19
In 1606, a 34-year-old visually impaired musician was accepted in the Carmelite novitiate house in Dol-de-Bretagne, France. Jean du Moulin, a late vocation by the standards of the time, had lost his vision at the tender age of three after contracting smallpox. Orphaned aged 10, he earned a living as a performer and organist in various churches. He was also well versed in the classics and in Christian mysticism as he had others read aloud to him.
Upon Jean’s arrival at Dol for his novitiate, the plague broke in the city, friars in the community started to get infected and to die, so the community, in an attempt to limit the danger, resorted to abandon the house, except for a friar and a servant appointed to care for the sick. Although blind, Jean saved a novice who, in a fit of delirium, was about to fly out of the window. Having brought him back to his bed and sitting next to him, holding him close to calm him down, Jean cared for him until he passed away. Jean treated another as best he could, but in compassionately caring for the sick he was finally struck down himself, and was recovered in the lazaretto. There he continued to accompany and care for the infected with great tenderness and spiritual consolation.
Soon he became notorious as healer of the infected, to the point of having to submit himself to an investigation by the ecclesiastical authorities for superstitious practices. The proof he was not a spiritual charlatan was his great compassion and gratitude, which made of him a much beloved teacher in the spiritual path. Jean is up to this day a renowned mystic who left us a rich legacy of dictated mystical texts. There’s nothing superstitious either in his doctrine nor in the healings he performed.
Today neuroscience tells us that the virtues of compassion and gratitude have considerable physical and psychosocial benefits, including improved outcomes in ailing patients, and neuroscientist research is helping to renew medical practice.
In the stories of Naaman and of the 10 lepers, healed by the Prophet Elisha and Jesus, we are given lessons in compassion and gratitude. Naaman from Syria reluctantly accepts to go and meet the Prophet Elisha. Moreover, he accepts to bathe in the Jordan. The welcoming compassion of Naaman from the prophet of God contrasts with his superstitious expectation for some form of magical performance from Elisha the healer. Also, Jesus’s compassion towards the 10 lepers, who stood at a distance from him, restores them to health just through Jesus’s acknowledgement of their presence and who sends them for a check-up. No esoteric gestures, no magical or superstitious utterings, just compassionate acknowledgement of the dignity of the infirm people standing before him. The acknowledgement, of both the prophet and Jesus, becomes more significant when one considers that infectious diseases were also perceived as indications of a sinful life. Hence, the infirm were ostracised for their condition not only on the social level but also on the spiritual and religious one. Compassion integrates and brings them back to a physical and spiritual state of well-being, which in biblical terms is referred to as salvation.
Compassion integrates and brings [the infirm people] back to a physical and spiritual state of well-being, which in biblical terms is referred to as salvation
In the second reading, the apostle Paul discloses with us his approach to salvation: “I bear with everything for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus.” He models his life approach and method on Jesus’s own faithfulness and nearness to us ailing sinners. If compassion is challenging, so is gratitude.
We do not know whether Naaman was grateful, but we do know that of the 10 healed lepers, only one – a defiled Samaritan considered to be worse than a pagan – returned to show his gratitude to Jesus. If compassion heals, so is gratitude refreshing. May we always excel in both for the good of all.