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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
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Gospel text (Lk 17:11-19): As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" And when he saw them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests." As they were going they were cleansed.

And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him...."

The “approachable God”

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Pope Francis) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, our God is a God who is approaching us. A God who is close. A God who started walking with His people and then became one of them, in Jesus Christ, to become close.

But not with a metaphysical closeness, but with that closeness that Luke describes when He is going to cure the daughter of Jairus, when people squeezed Him to near suffocation while the poor old lady at the back wanted to touch the brim of His cloak. With that closeness that gave encouragement to those ten lepers to ask Him to clean them up... No one wanted to miss that closeness. He healed, He worked good deeds. Saint Peter says it: "He passed by doing good and healing". Jesus did not do proselytism: He accompanied people! And conversions thus achieved were just by His attitude to accompany, teach, listen.

-The "approachable God," the God who puts His people in a situation to be found. And with this proximity He creates this culture of the encounter that makes us brothers, makes us children, and not members of a Non-Governmental Organization.