It is 13th October 2019. We celebrate the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The readings are from 2 Kings 5:14-17; the second reading is from 2 Timothy 2:8-13; and the Gospel from Luke 17:11-19. In this week, we will concentrate on the theme of being witnesses of faith and bearing testimonies to our faith. His holiness Pope Paul VI taught in Evangelii Nuntiandi, No 41, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” Being grateful to God and the community is the witness we all need as missionary disciples. To be thankful is not a cultural duty but it the spiritual act that reveals the interiority of the person. In the First Reading we have the healing of Naaman, a foreigner in the land of Israel. Naaman believes that Yahweh is the healer and he proclaims to all that there is no other God in the universe other than the God of Israel. This healing episode tells us, like Naaman, we need to be a grateful witness to God for all that God has done to us by humble submission and obedience. To bear witness to our faith, we need to have our heart converted and surrender to God. It is easy to bear witness to our faith when everything goes well with in our life. Without personal encounter and recognition, we cannot bear witness to faith. The curing and healing that allows us to bear witness. Curing is of physical while healing of internal. Total healing, true conversion coupled with the obedience to the Word of God through personal encounter with God. The second reading presents us St. Paul being a witness to the Lord as he went through hardships, humiliation and imprisonment. We must not stop speaking for Christ and the Gospel even if are forced to go through unfair sufferings. Our perseverance is one of the ways to be grateful to God and lifting the name of Christ and revealing Him in our lives. The responsorial Psalm praises, “The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.” (Ps.98:1). In the Gospel, St. Luke allow us to bear witness to the healing acts of God through His only Beloved Son, Jesus. Ten lepers meeting Christ, and healed by Him but sadly only one foreigner registered his gratitude while others forgot what God had done to them. In the moments of resistance to listen to the Word of God, curing could happen in a person not internal healing. The testimony of faith only happens to those who listening to the words of Jesus. In the New Testament, this is the only place, gratitude is addressed to Jesus. When our faith is transformed, we are ready and open to bear witnesses to Jesus. Our personal encounter could happen in our personal crisis, in a serious illness as divine initiative. We are called to bear witnesses to our faith by being grateful for the undeserved salvation in a foreign land or in our home land. May the Lord help us to be grateful witnesses of God’s mighty works of healing in our lives. May you have a good day. God bless you.