THE GRACE OF THE OUTSIDER

V/​ I will turn to you O God, 

R/​ to God who gives joy to my youth

V/​ Give me the Wisdom that sits by your throne; 

R/ that I may be counted among your children

Lord, in your all-providential plan, you have led me to this moment to rediscover me in your Word and Wisdom. Aid me to make this time of meditation and prayer enriching, transforming, and liberating for my well-being and others. Amen!

THE GRACE OF THE OUTSIDER

By Vivien Foster, OCDS

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Amos 6: 1, 4-7; Psalm 145: 6-10; 1 Timothy 6: 11-16; Luke 16: 19-31

2 Kings 5: 14-17; Psalm 98(97):1-4: 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19

12th October 2025

Here’s a question for you. What do all the following names have in common? Augustine of Hippo, John Henry Newman, Thomas Merton, and Edith Stein. That’s right, all these notable believers were adult converts to the Catholic faith. All lend credence to our impression that converts can often be exceptionally devout. At the heart of today’s readings is the idea that outsiders may be more receptive to God than those who consider themselves as insiders, the credit Catholics, if you will. Jesus himself discovered this towards the beginning of Luke’s gospel, when he is about to be expelled from the synagogue in Nazareth, declaring, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.

On that same occasion, he references today’s Old Testament story. In both our Old Testament and gospel passages for today, we see outsiders, Naaman the Syrian and a Samaritan, being healed from leprosy, and in both cases, insiders, the Jewish lepers of those times, come off worse. So what can we insiders learn from the attitude of these graced outsiders? Well, first, the outsiders seem willing to go along with God’s ways, however strange and unfamiliar they might initially appear.

Their trust in the healing overcomes their misgiving about the healing process. Their desperate situations engender a humility that opens them up to any solution, however alien. Just before today’s readings from the book of Kings, the prophet Elijah tells Naaman the Syrian to bathe seven times in the river Jordan.

He is at first perplexed, as this is not the kind of healing ritual that he had imagined or hoped for. However, his servant persuades him to follow the prophet’s instructions, which though obscure and not difficult. Similarly, for the Samaritan among the ten lepers, Jesus’ instruction to show himself to the priest would have been equally foreign.

We know that the Samaritan people had roundly rejected the temple-based system of worship favoured by the Jews. However, he clearly overcomes any prejudice he may have had and sets off alongside his fellow Jewish sufferers. The second striking parallel between our two stories is the depth of gratitude that the outsiders experience and the way that gratitude spills over so readily into conversion and adoration.

Indeed, the value of the physical healing is in some sense overshadowed by the spiritual conversion to which it gives rise. These outsiders may come seeking the gifts of God, but they leave in possession of God himself. Naaman the Syrian initially tries to express his gratitude in the standard gentile way of offering gifts to the prophet Elijah.

These were flatly rejected because the healing power that has been exercised belongs to God rather than the prophet, and God’s gifts are in any case beyond our power to repay. Far from being offended by his apparently discourteous response, Naaman the Syrian instead realises that his worship is the only fitting response to God’s gift. Similarly, the Samaritan leper stands out from his fellows by being the only one to return to Jesus with grateful praise and throw himself down to the ground in devout adoration. We do not hear much about the other nine. Overall, what these outsiders bring is a humility born of facing a rock-bottom situation, which opens them to seeking help without expectation or preconception, and to wholeheartedly appreciating what is given with childlike simplicity. These are precisely the ideal conditions for God to do his work.

We find evidence of these blessed attitudes in the Carmelite saint Edith Stein. Her ardent search was not for physical healing, but for intellectual truth. As she said, my longing for truth was a prayer in itself. Having become a Jewish atheist during her youth and subsequently a prominent secular philosopher, Edith’s searching heart remained receptive, and upon a chance reading of the life of Teresa of Avila at a single all-night sitting, she declared, that is the truth, and set out the very next morning to buy a catechism and a missal so that she could prepare herself for baptism. The rest is history.