Every once in a while, the celebrant ends the Mass saying: “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your deeds.”

Notice the two aspects here. Glorify the Lord, exalt, give praise and thanksgiving. We have to this point always looked at today’s Gospel as an invitation to give thanks to our God for all He is and does for us. Today we are invited to look further. God is so good to each one of us. He provides for all our needs, because He is attentive to each one of us, because He looks at each one of us , because He sees each of our needs and He does his best to provide.
Jesus is God’s Son. He has God’s heart. He knows, He sees the needs of each one of us and He is eager to provide where help is needed. He offered healing to the ten lepers, even to the stranger among them, the Samaritan, despised by the Jews, regarded as a gentile, a stranger, a sinner. Jesus is trying to underline that only the stranger came back to say thanks, because Jesus did not consider him as an outcast, not deserving of his grace and favor, but saw his need of healing and granted it to him as He did to the other nine. Jesus sees those most in need.

We are thus invited to look like Him, to be like Him. How good are we in seeing those most in need around us and do for them what Jesus would do?

More and more, our mother, the Catholic Church, is loosing this mother’s heart that would make her more considerate towards the little ones, the forgotten, the most needy, the strangers in our midst. In many places, some kind of prejudice still exists that can make a few not feel welcome. It would be good to make sure that we do our best to eradicate anything that could be seen as a lack of love or understanding. We need to find ways that
make everyone feel welcome, because like Jesus, we are called to recognize and fulfill everyone’s needs.

So then, this week, are we going to make sure that we give thanks to the Lord for all He is and does for us, by showing deeds, not by mere words? It’s easy to say, to make promises, to take resolutions, but the Lord deserves better than that. Let’s remember John’s invitation to show our love by our deeds: “Beloved, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” ( 1 John 3:18)

Fr Danis Ridore