Ten men cried out: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
Ten were healed.
Only one came back.

And Jesus asks, “Were not ten made clean? Where are the other nine?”

That question still echoes through the Church.
It’s the question Christ asks every generation — perhaps especially ours.

Where are the others?
Where are the nine who once knelt in faith and walked away?
Where are the nine baptised and forgotten?
Where are the nine who took God’s gifts but not God Himself?

Every man in that story received grace — but only one returned it.
Nine were satisfied with healing; one was hungry for holiness.
Nine were content with comfort; one wanted communion.
Nine wanted a cure; one wanted Christ.

And that, brothers and sisters, is the difference between religion and relationship, between superstition and faith.
Many want what God gives.
Few want God Himself.

That’s why this Gospel is not about leprosy — it’s about gratitude.
Because thanksgiving is the language of salvation.
The word Eucharist literally means “thanksgiving.”
The one who turned back to give thanks is the first to kneel before the Eucharistic Lord.

Notice what Jesus says: “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

Why the priests? Because in Jewish law only the priest could declare a leper clean — could restore him to the community of worship.
Even before Calvary, Christ was pointing to His priesthood and to the sacraments.

He heals them on the way to the priest — a sign of the sacramental Church He would found.
God’s mercy always runs through the priestly ministry of His Church.
Even now, it’s the same: We go to the priest not to impress him but to meet Christ who forgives through him.
The confessional is our Jordan River;
the Eucharist is our return to thanksgiving.

Leprosy in Scripture is more than illness — it’s an image of sin.
It separates. It isolates. It disfigures.
The leper is the man or woman cut off from the community of grace.
That’s what sin does — it corrodes what’s beautiful, numbs the conscience, and drives us outside the camp.

And only Christ can heal it.
He touches the untouchable.
He enters the leper colony of humanity, takes the disease on Himself, and dies with it on the Cross.
And from that Cross, healing begins again — through His Body, the Church.

If you want to know what real mercy looks like, look at a crucifix.
That’s the cost of our cleansing.

The first reading gives us Naaman, another leper, another outsider.
He expects drama.
He expects Elisha to wave his hand, to perform some spectacle.
But the prophet only says, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times.”

Naaman almost refuses — too simple, too undignified.
But when he obeys, he’s cleansed.

That’s the Catholic pattern again: grace comes through obedience.
God hides His power in simple acts: water, oil, bread, wine.
The proud look for fireworks; the faithful kneel before the sacraments.
Naaman’s river is our baptismal font.
The Samaritan’s thanksgiving is our Eucharist.
Their faith is the faith of the Church — trust that God saves through humble means.

When the Samaritan comes back, he doesn’t say, “Thanks, Jesus, that was nice.”
He falls on his face at the Lord’s feet.
That’s worship.
That’s conversion.

True gratitude always bends the knees.
It doesn’t just thank God — it surrenders to Him.

And Jesus notices: “Your faith has saved you.” Not just healed — saved.

Because the healing of the body is temporary.
The healing of the soul is eternal.

We can have health and still be lost;
we can be dying and still be saved.

The difference is not circumstance; it’s surrender.

The nine never returned — and that’s our modern epidemic.
Ingratitude.
A civilisation of takers.
We gorge on grace but forget the Giver.

We live in a world that wants God’s blessings without His boundaries,
forgiveness without repentance,
peace without conversion.

We want to be healed, but not holy.
We want miracles, not Mass.
We want heaven, but not the narrow road that leads there.

That’s the spirit of the nine.
They received, but they never returned.

Every Mass is the Samaritan’s journey all over again.
Here we are, the ones who have turned back.
The world keeps walking away,
but we come to the altar —
to kneel, to give thanks, to adore.

Here we recognise not just what God has done,
but who He is:
The Lamb of God, the living sacrifice,
the same Jesus who heard the leper’s cry and hears ours still.

At every “Lift up your hearts,” the Church says,
“We lift them up to the Lord.”
That’s the moment we turn back like the Samaritan.
That’s the heartbeat of the Church: thanksgiving.

But thanksgiving must turn outward.
The one who returned was sent again: “Stand up and go.”
Gratitude becomes mission.
The healed become heralds.
The forgiven become witnesses.

Every time we leave Mass, the dismissal is not the end but the sending:
“Go forth, the Mass is ended.”
It means, “You’ve met the Healer — now carry His mercy into the world.”

The Eucharist that begins in thanksgiving must end in witness.
Otherwise, we’re just the nine again — healed but unconverted.

The saints were the ones who never stopped returning.
Every one of them could say with the Samaritan,
“I am the one who came back.”

St Francis, sick and blind, still sang, “Praise be to You, my Lord.”
St Thérèse, dying young, whispered, “Everything is grace.”
St Thomas More, facing death, said, “I die the king’s good servant, but God’s first.”

Gratitude was their battle cry.
Because gratitude is the soil of sanctity.
A heart that gives thanks is a heart that cannot fall far from God.

So what about us?
We are the ten — sinners who cried for mercy.
We are the one — disciples who have returned.
We are the Church — the people of thanksgiving.

But let this Gospel confront us.
Are we living like the one, or drifting like the nine?
Do we come to the sacraments as consumers or as worshippers?
Do we thank God when the miracle is small,
when life is hard, when prayers are not answered our way?

The Samaritan came back singing before the miracle was complete.
He walked by faith, not by sight.
That’s the kind of faith that saves.

Ten were healed.
One returned.

Nine were cleansed in the flesh.
One was made whole in the soul.

Nine went home to life as usual.
One went home reborn.

The world will keep walking away.
But we — the Church, the Eucharistic people — must keep returning.
Because gratitude is the heartbeat of holiness.
It’s the cure for pride, the seed of joy, the beginning of heaven.

So today, as we come to this altar, let’s be that one.
Let’s fall at the feet of Jesus in adoration.
Let’s give thanks not only for the healing of our bodies,
but for the mercy that saves our souls.

And when the Mass ends, let’s go out into the world carrying the same message:
The Healer lives.
His mercy endures.
And everything we have is a gift of his grace.