Words on the Word
Show yourselves to the priests
Homily given at the reception into the Church of Heidi Frich Andersen.
Luke 17.11-19: Go and show yourselves to the priests.
It is curious, really, that Christ, God from God and Light from Light, on meeting a band of lepers between Samaria and Galilee, did not just heal them then and there, but instead said, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests’.
There must be a message in this exhortation. Elsewhere he heals sick people forthwith; there’s no lack of ability. He wishes, then, to tell us something about the power inherent in divinely-given liturgy and law. The border country up in the north, the Gospel tells us, was a syncretistic region. Israel’s God was worshiped there, sure; but much had been added to, much subtracted from the religion of the Fathers.
There was faith, otherwise the lepers would not have cried out for God’s mercy; but that faith was rootless, somehow, and lacking orientation. That is why Jesus pointed the seekers towards Jerusalem, towards the ordained priesthood, saying: ‘Discover the grace and promises God has given his people and find therein comfort and healing.’
The counsel was effective. All of them were made well.
Today, dear Heidi, you are being received into full communion with the Catholic Church. You have come a long way. You have walked faithfully. You have found blessing, and been a source of blessing to others, on the journey. But now you have come home. You, too, have been attracted towards the clarity and objectivity handed on in the Church’s sacramental dispensation.
You know church life well enough to have few illusions about people, least of all about the clergy. But thank God we are more than our own limitations. The length and breadth, height and depth of God are present in the assembly he calls. Our community is imperfect; that can be painfully obvious at times. Yet nonetheless it glows with a transcendent yet palpable benediction of which it is not the origin. For one who has eyes to see, ears to hear, the Lord is present in his ecclesia; and where the Church is truly present there is a radiance of glory that illumines, gladdens, and heals.
Of the ten lepers that were cleansed, one only returned to give thanks. This fact gives food for thought. If I may give you one word of advice today, Heidi, it would be this: Do not forget to thank God for the mercy he has shown you, for his providential guidance through deep and dark places, for his life-giving, challenging word, for the nourishment he gives, and for the communion which the Church constitutes.
‘You have made my life’, says Solveig to the love of her life in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, ‘into a lovely song’. Thereby this strange Marian figure in Norway’s national literature indicates the core of our Christian call, of the Church’s mystery. We are called to become holy, to become, in Christ, praise. It rejoices God’s heart to see us grow into beatitude and resonant freedom.
Rise, then, Heidi, and sing, you who today have been so richly blessed. And welcome home! In Christ’s name, Amen.
Jorge Cocco, Christ and the Ten Lepers.