28 Sunday Ordinary Time, C, 13 October 2013, Luke 17:11-19

http://www.stgeorges.nhs.uk/

Some years ago, from April to July of 2006, I spent a few months at a hospital in London undergoing training for chaplaincy. The course was quite unusual in that, from the very first day, we had to go into the wards and visit with the patients. We were appointed as student chaplains, and assigned particular wards to look after. I was appointed to the Cardiac and Neurology wards. Many of the people that I met were very ill, and very shocked to find themselves in hospital. Stroke victims, people who had suffered heart attacks, and many other minor and major ailments were among the people that I encountered.

Of course, it being London, about 1 or 2 out of every 10 people that I met were Catholic. So, for the vast majority of my time there, my ministry was to non-Catholics. Many of them were Christians of one denomination or another. Some attempted to ‘convert’ me. Others would not speak to me. But many were glad to meet with me and share a part of their journey.

A key question that developed for me, and perhaps it is developing for you now as I speak: How can a Catholic offer ministry, offer pastoral care, to a person who is not a Catholic?

In our gospel this Sunday, Jesus walks along the border between Galilee and Samaria. I guess the equivalent today might be walking the so-called ‘Peace Wall’ in Belfast, or the wall that divides modern-day Palestine into Jewish and Arab areas. The border is not an easy place to be. It is out on the periphery; the place that Pope Francis has proposed as a key site of our ministry.

These periphery areas, these border areas, can also be rich places, rich in culture, rich in different traditions, rich in different foods and language, and theatre, and so on. They are places where people take refuge if their own community has disowned them. And so, they can also be places of darkness, of sickness, and places of ill-repute. This is the place where Jesus goes.

And there, he encounters an isolated group. Bound together by their common illness, these ten lepers are of differing nationalities. Somehow, they know who Jesus is. They call him by name: “Jesus! Master!” So they also accord him his status “Master!” Master of our lives, Master of the Universe, Master of everything that is. . . “Take pity on us.” Pity, feel our pain, know what it is like to experience what we experience, lift some of this burden from us, because only you can.”

How can God heal a foreigner? A non-Jew? How can a Catholic minister to a non-Catholic?

Ephesians 4:4-6
"There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."

Our being Catholic challenges us to reach out to every human being, no matter their faith, their gender, their ethnic group, their sexual orientation, their riches, or their poverty. No matter what divides us, we reach out to the other, because that is what the Lord himself has done.

Maybe they, maybe us, maybe we, will be surprised by joy, and turn, and run to the feet of Jesus, and praise and thank God.