This Sunday is a day of unexpected blessings and miracles, signs of how God is active and alive and present in our world and in our lives when we are open and receptive to the possibilities. We hear, read about, and experience healing. Fragile relationships are restored, and hope is experienced in profound ways. Naaman, a commander and mighty warrior, suffers from leprosy. When he accepts the advice of his servant, by God’s action his skin and its disease is washed clean. Also afflicted with leprosy, ten lepers implore God’s mercy and are made clean. But the outsider—the foreigner—is the only one who returns to give thanks. Today many of us encounter other hardships of all sorts, and our reading in 2 Timothy makes the stark point that we all suffer. But our God joins us in our sufferings and in our hardships, making us whole through our spiritual cleansing of baptism and filling us with God’s Spirit. For this we have returned to offer thanks. From this place we are sent on our way rejoicing to share the good news.
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