Let’s not hide behind a finger. The most common reason we turn to God is because we are in need. In fact, it is precisely in the most difficult moments that prayer rises most urgently within us.
Pain makes our prayers more effective, or at least more frequent and more insistent. But is this enough to call us believers? The story told in today’s Gospel (Luke 17:11-19) is truly paradigmatic of all this.
Ten lepers seek and find Jesus and ask him to heal them. All ten are united by the same desperation. Leprosy is a terrible disease. Jesus does not allow them to beg excessively. He dismisses them almost immediately, granting their request: “As soon as he saw them, Jesus said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.”
It is also beautiful to think about the dynamism of this miracle. The healing of these people happens along the way, perhaps suggesting to us that every true healing involves a journey. But the real variable in this story lies in one of these ten: “One of them, seeing that he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice, and came and threw himself at Jesus’ feet to thank him.”
Jesus is not a distributor of miracles, but Someone who loves you. If you realize this love, you have received much more than a simple healing: “Get up and go; your faith has saved you.” Saved is much better than healed, don’t you think?
[Maria Cavazzini Fortini, watercolor (2018)]
