" a grateful leper at your feet"

As both of my readers know, I endeavor to observe Friday as a day of penance. Maybe this is because I need to do penance that often. However, I do so out of love and with gratitude for what Jesus accomplished on his glorious cross and not out some misguided sense that God, who is goodness, is displeased with me. I am aware that I cannot earn God's favor. I always already have God's favor. Jesus is the proof of this. But even when I have done all Jesus calls me do (something that rarely happens), I remain, as he insisted in last Sunday's Gospel (see Luke 17:5-10), an unprofitable servant who has only done what is best described as the minimum. I think this as much to do with motivation than execution. In other words, how often do I do what Jesus ask of me out of a sense of obligation instead out of genuine love of neighbor?

Somehow, by the grace of God, I live in the pretty constant awareness of God's love for me as it is expressed in the life, teaching, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is awareness is a gift of the Spirit, whom the Lord sent after his ascension in fulfillment of his promise not leave his followers orphaned. Quite literally, this awareness has saved my life.

It is the by the Holy Spirit's power, which effects the sacraments, most especially in this regard the Eucharist, that Jesus comes not only to be among us in some inchoate way but to dwell in us. Because of this, Jesus is not "out there" but in me, desiring to live his resurrected through me. Jesus-in-me does not obliterate my personhood. Rather, he completes it, making me the person I am created and redeemed me to be.

Looking forward to this Sunday's readings, which tells of Jesus's healing of ten lepers (see Luke 17:11-19), here's a little snippet from what I plan to preach:

Just as he does with the lepers in today’s Gospel, Jesus unfailingly takes pity on us. He shows us the mercy of God time and time again. As Pope Francis said: you will grow tired of confessing your sins way before God will grow tired of forgiving you. God never grows tired of being merciful because God never grows tired of being God. Jesus is the mercy of God. As someone who has received God’s mercy, the issue becomes whether you take it for granted or you are grateful, like the one leper who came back to thank Jesus for healing him.

Our gratitude is shown by becoming merciful, that is, full of mercy ourselves.

Continuing my contemporary Christian music (CCM) jag, our traditio is a repeat, albeit from several years ago. Casting Crowns singing "Jesus, Friend of Sinners" strikes me as utterly appropriate for today's traditio.