Daily Gospel Reflection
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November 27, 2025
As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten persons with leprosy 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.
He was a Samaritan.
Jesus said in reply,
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”
Then he said to him, “Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you.”
A guiding principle in ancient concepts of religion can be summed up in the Latin phrase, “Do et dus.” Translated, this means, “I give, that you may give.” That was how men approached their gods; offerings were made as part of a bargain struck. If you didn’t get what you wanted, you assumed you had somehow botched the offering. Those hearing today’s gospel in the first century would have been aware of this approach to religion.
But that is not how Christ works. The lepers come to him with nothing but open hands. They have no reason to expect anything except scorn from him, but they come because of the great things they have heard of him. That is their faith, and that faith is their offering.
Jesus, of course, heals them. He is not so vain or transactional as those gods made in man’s image. He does not require payment in advance. But there is one more twist in this story. Nine of the lepers apparently did not believe in gratitude. They believed in Jesus’ power, but apparently not so much in his teachings. Only the Samaritan came back to thank Christ.
Jesus does not punish their ingratitude and bring their leprosy back. He simply sends the leper on his way to live his life. But one can only suspect that the Samaritan leper took a different lesson that day from the nine; that while they received the same gift, only one lived a different life as a result.
One cannot help but remember the Parable of the Sower from earlier in Luke. Jesus has scattered the seed of his Word to all of us and has given each of us new life. Now it is our turn to glorify him or go on with those new lives unchanged.
May our prayer be to return to him every day, “to glorify God in a loud voice.”
Prayer
God our Father, you are a God who does not desire judgment, but mercy. Help us to live not in fear, but rather in love as your son taught us. Make us ever ready to listen faithfully to your gospel of love and forgiveness. We ask this through your son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.
Saint of the Day
The U.S. Thanksgiving holiday is not a liturgical celebration, nor is it on the Catholic Church's universal calendar, but there are significant parallels between this holiday and the Catholic Mass.
The word “Eucharist”—a term that describes both the Mass itself, and the consecrated body and blood of Christ in Communion—literally translates to “thanksgiving.” In a way, Christians have been celebrating thanksgiving every day for 2,000 years.
It is no coincidence that both the Thanksgiving holiday today and the Mass involve a meal. Sharing a meal might not be the first association we may make when we think of going to Mass, but at its heart, liturgy gathers people together around the Lord’s table.
There are other parallels between the Mass and the Thanksgiving feast we celebrate today. In both cases, people gather from far and wide to share community together and to build bonds of connection with one another that cross geographic or social divisions. One significant way this happens is by telling stories from our shared past—at Thanksgiving we reminisce about family lore over a glass of wine, and at Mass, we read from the Scriptures to remember what happened to those who went before us in the journey of faith. Both Thanksgiving and the Mass send us back to our lives and into the world emboldened in our identity as members of the same family.
In the Gospel, when Jesus feeds the 5,000 and when he gathers with his disciples at the Last Supper, he makes four key movements: he takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and shares it. The same pattern happens at Mass—the bread and the wine are taken, blessed, broken or poured, and shared. So are we who gather to celebrate together—we are taken from our homes and our places in the world, and we are blessed by approaching God together in prayer. We are broken when we prayerfully join Jesus’ gift of himself in love on the cross. We are shared with the world when we are sent forth from Mass to display the love of Christ in our neighborhoods and families.
In whatever way we are able to celebrate today, let us attend to the ways that we are taken, blessed, broken, and shared with one another. Let us give thanks for the gift of God’s presence among us in the person of Jesus Christ, and in the love we share with those around our table. And let us remember to extend our fellowship and love to those who have no table or community to gather around.
This Thanksgiving—and at every Mass—let us give thanks and share our love with those who need it most!
If you are in need of a Thanksgiving prayer to share at your table today, you can find several from Notre Dame to share from our prayer card site—try this Prayer of Thanksgiving or browse other prayers of gratitude here.
