TEXT: Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 12, 2025
October 12, 2025 Father De Celles Homily
28th Sunday Ordinary Time
October 12, 2025
Homily by Fr. John De Celles
St. Raymond of Peñafort Catholic Church
Springfield, VA
Today’s Gospel tells us a story of gratitude and ingratitude.
Jesus cures ten lepers, but for some reason
only one—the foreigner, the Samaritan—comes back to thank Him.
So Jesus says,
“Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”
This seems a pretty natural question until you stop and think about it:
Why does Jesus criticize the other nine,
who probably went on to the temple to show themselves to the priest
just like Jesus told them to,
and in doing so, they probably also gave thanks to God?
The thing is, Jesus is trying to make several important points.
First, He’s saying that it is He, Jesus,
who is both the God who cured them
and the God to whom they should come to give thanks.
He also makes a second point, one that the leper probably didn’t understand,
but one that was not lost on the apostles,
at least as they looked back on it later.
He’s saying not only is He God,
but He is also the new priest that they should come to.
He’s the priest of the new covenant because He offers the new sacrifice,
His sacrifice on the Cross,
that saves them not merely from leprosy, but from every evil,
and offers them new and eternal life.
He is the new priest who gave His Church a means
to continue to come to Him and share in His sacrifice
as He took bread and wine and said to His apostles,
“This is my body given up for you…” and
“This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new covenant.”
All this wasn’t lost on the apostles and the early Church:
They clearly saw that Christ had used this powerful miracle
to teach us the necessity of appreciating
the life-giving power of His Cross and the Eucharist.
And so, St. Luke makes the point to record in his Gospel
that the Samaritan “fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him,”
and that Jesus said,
“None but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God.”
Of course, in his original Greek text
St. Luke used the Greek word for “thanksgiving,”
which is “Euchariston,”
in a not-so-subtle way of pointing out that this whole miracle
points to thanksgiving for the “Euchariston”—the Eucharist.
____
Today, polls tell us that somewhere around 70% of Catholics don’t believe
in the true meaning of the Eucharist–
that it is truly the Body and Blood of Christ,
and a re-presentation of the one salvific sacrifice of the Cross.
Not quite 9 out of 10, like with the lepers,
but I imagine if we threw in those who
fail to truly be grateful for this gift and
to receive Him reverently and with sincere faith in Holy Communion,
we’d come pretty close to 9 out of 10.
Jesus told the Samaritan that his faith in Jesus saved him.
But Catholics, myself included,
repeatedly fail to have faith in Jesus and His words,
“This is my body.”
And even when we believe, how often do we fail to imitate the Samaritan
and come to Jesus to thank Him for this miracle?
Most of the time our failures are slight,
and we recover quickly to reverence and faith.
But sometimes our failure leads to neglecting the Eucharist,
and even to sacrilegious behavior.
It’s even led some to view receiving Holy Communion
as a “right” that no one can deny you–
to a mentality that once you’ve been baptized a Catholic,
regardless of what you do or say, you can always receive Communion.
Now, it is true that there is an immediate and direct connection
between Baptism and Eucharist.
We see this in today’s readings—particularly the 1st reading and the Gospel,
in the stories of the healing of the lepers.
The sacramental symbolism is vivid.
The cleansing of the leprosy is the washing away of sins in baptism.
Naaman plunges seven times into the waters of the Jordan,
seven being symbolic of the seven sacraments opened to us through baptism
and the Jordan being the river of Jesus’ own baptism,
pointing to Jesus Himself as the one who “cleanses” the lepers,
just as it is Christ Himself who cleanses us in the waters of baptism.
And finally, once cleansed they offer thanks to God:
Naaman by offering sacrifice a to God,
the Samaritan in the Gospel by coming to Jesus,
again, pointing to the sacrifice of Jesus which we call the “thanksgiving”:
the Eucharist.
We see the direct connection between Baptism and the Eucharist:
the cleansing of Baptism prepares us for the Eucharist,
While Baptism does give birth to a right to receive Communion,
it is not an absolute right.
Some forget that we have to keep our baptismal purity
if we are going to come to Jesus in the Eucharist.
How utterly perverse it would have been if the leper had been cured
but then willfully re-contracted leprosy
and returned to Jesus.
Grave or mortal sin is a choice to return to being spiritual lepers,
and so, makes giving thanks to Jesus non-sensical.
How then can a baptized Catholic in the state of mortal sin
expect to receive Holy Communion?
As St. Paul sternly warns us elsewhere in scripture:
“Whoever…eats the bread or drinks the cup …in an unworthy manner
will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.
Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”
So, it has been the constant teaching of the Church
that if a baptized Catholic commits a “grave” or “mortal” sin
–a sin that cuts us off from God’s eternal life—
he cannot receive Holy Communion
until he has been cleansed of that sin, restored to God’s life
by the absolution of the sacrament of penance,
which the early Church Fathers said was “like a second baptism.”
___
Now, the Church doesn’t want to be the “mortal sin police,”
publicly denying Communion to all sorts of people.
Even if we did, priests don’t usually know who has unconfessed mortal sins.
So, we usually follow the instruction of St. Paul, “Let a man examine himself,” before receiving Communion.
Before Communion, as a Catholic, you must examine yourself,
and if you have a mortal sin that you have not gone to confession for,
you must deny yourself communion.
But not all sins work that way.
Some sins are so public and clearly grave,
that they require some sort of public repentance
before the sinner can be given Communion.
The law of the Church explicitly provides,
“Those…who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin
are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
Notice, it doesn’t say they “shouldn’t go” to Communion,
it says they “are not to be admitted.”
In other words, the responsibility of denying Communion shifts
from the individual self to the priest:
The priest is forbidden to give Communion in these cases.
Now, the “rule” here isn’t so much to punish the sinner,
as it is mainly meant for the good of the rest of us.
If someone who stubbornly persists in publicly committing mortal sins
then receives Holy Communion,
other good people might start to think those mortal sins
weren’t so mortal after all.
And these same good people
might start to think the Church doesn’t really mean
all those wonderful things it says about the Eucharist.
This is what we call the “sin of scandal,”
confusing people about what is true or false, right or wrong.
So, for the good of the innocent,
“Those…who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin…”
are denied Communion.
____
We recognize this month of October as “Respect Life Month.”
This brings to mind one of the all-too-common examples of both
a manifest public and grave sinner:
Catholics who publicly advocate for abortion, especially politicians.
These politicians often claim that Catholic Baptism gives them
an absolute right to receive Communion.
They are terribly confused, and they are a cause of a lot of confusion, or scandal.
Let us be clear. As Pope St. John Paul wrote in Evangelium Vitae:
“Direct abortion…always constitutes a grave moral disorder,
since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.”
So, it is clear that Catholic politicians who publicly support
the so-called right to abortion
are in fact “obstinately persist[ing] in manifest grave sin,”
and “are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
The tradition and the law are clear.
There is no doubt.
___
An example of this scandal was seen in the case of the Catholic Senator from Illinois, Richard Durbin.
You may have read about how his Bishop, Bishop Paprocki in Springfield, Illinois,
had publicly informed Durbin that his avid support for abortion
clearly made him one of
“those…who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin…”
and so unable to be given Communion.
Thank you, Bishop Paprocki for being so clear.
But then last month, Cardinal Cupich of Chicago decided confusion is a good thing
and decided to give Sen. Durbin an award for his service to the Church.
Thank the Good Lord at least ten other American bishops publicly chastised
Cardinal Cupich for his action.
And thank the Lord that Durbin himself wound up rejecting the award.
Still, some people insist,
“It’s important to look at the overall work that a senator has done
during…40 years…in the…Senate,”
to make any kind of judgment about him.
But, that’s not how it works–not in civil society, not in the Church
and not with God.
Consider a man who has worked hard to build a business
treated his employees justly and generously,
and been a good husband and father.
Then we discover he’s a serial rapist or murderer?
I mean, do we have to look at the “overall work” he’s done,
and not judge him by a few little rapes or murders?
____
Why don’t the bishops enforce the rules
about not receiving Communion like Bishop Paprocki does,
like when he ruled that Durbin was one of
“those…who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin”?
Why don’t other bishops treat other pro-abortion public officials that way?
Don’t they know that by remaining silent, and even worse,
publicly praising folks who vocally support abortion or other grave sins,
they confuse, or “scandalize,” Catholics,
not just about the gravity of the sin, but about the Holiness of Eucharist?
Because, as I said before, if you can support killing babies
and still receive Communion or awards from the Church,
otherwise good Catholics now think the Church doesn’t really mean
all those wonderful things it says about the Eucharist.
Why do bishops and priests do this?
Maybe it’s because they’re afraid of suffering your negative reaction.
I know I am.
But in today’s Gospel Jesus says,
“Go show yourselves to the priests.”
And as St. Paul tells us in the second reading,
“Such is [the] gospel, for which I am suffering,
even to the point of chains…
But the word of God is not chained.”
For a priest–or anyone–to deny the Church’s constant teaching by silence
is simply to try to chain the word of God and to deny Jesus.
And as St. Paul says, “If we deny him, he will deny us.”
____
Today’s Gospel tells us a story of gratitude and ingratitude.
Now, as we move deeper into the mystery of the sacrifice of the Mass,
whether we’re striving every day and in every way to be saints,
or if we obstinately persist in manifest grave sin,
or we’re somewhere in between,
let us not be ungrateful for what we receive here today.
Let us open our hearts to truly and profoundly appreciate
the fullness of the ramifications and consequences
of the magnificent gift Jesus gives us in the Eucharist.
And following the example of the Samaritan leper,
let us come before the altar and “fall at the feet of Jesus and give him thanks.”