Twenty-Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homilies from the Masses of

• October 13, 2019 8:30AM
• October 9, 2016 Noon

_______

The poem Fr Dennis references is:

• Kindness by Stephen Dunn
• no poem in 2016 as there was a baptism

In 2019, we reflected on —

• the poem, Kindness by Stephen Dunn.  While I’m sure we reflected on more with Fr Dennis, I did not take notes at this homily!

 In 2016, we reflected that —

• the baptism is a homily, in a way  🙂
  • we are celebrating another member of the church
  • faith is active in our lives, and how we share it
• there are no special readings for baptisms, because Sunday readings are always about faith. But these two readings (Naaman from 2 Kings and the grateful Samaritan healed of leprosy) are especially good with
  • a main character being an outsider, an alien or foreigner
  • the Israeli King thinks his request is a ruse
  • Naaman / Elisha — Naaman thinks the request/ritual is a farce and beneath him
  • His servants encourage him to get in the Jordan River, and he receives the “flesh of a young child,”  … seems like more than curing of the skin disease, more like a baptism with its fresh start.
• Dennis, at his age (76+ at the time) sees and enjoys the contrast between his hands and all their marks of wear, tear, and age with the unblemished newness of the baby’s skin in a Baptism.
• For outsiders, holy people aren’t from Israel (everyone has their own gods, holy people, prophets, and soil), but Naaman wants to give a gift to Elisha for this service.
  • Elisha turns it over to God;
  • so Naaman asks for two loads of Jewish soil, which will be enough to worship the God of Israel on, indicating that he is a kind of convert to Judaism.
• The gospel story from Luke is also a conversion story.  This time by a Samaritan healed of leprosy, the only one of ten people suffering from leprosy (Hansen’s disease) to return in gratitude.  The ten people suffering from leprosy leave, are healed as they go, and the outsider (the Samaritan) returns to Jesus to give thanks.  Jesus has given them what they need next, a large sense of life’s many gifts to us, which hopefully invokes gratitude in us.
  • Jesus ends that his “faith has saved him” so this is not solely a cure, nor solely religious.
  • Anything that gives life is part of God’s salvation
  • Anything that allows us to see life is part of God’s salvation
  • All blessings and healings are part of God’s salvation