Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours, Bishop

The ten lepers stand at a distance and call out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us.”

That distance is important, because it is what they were required to keep. Lepers were not to approach other people, in part because ancient people believed the disease could spread that way. There was also the question of ritual impurity.

So they follow the rules. Jesus tells them to show themselves to the priest, because there is a particular offering to make after being healed of leprosy. As they go, they are healed. They are doing what is required. Everyone is following the rules, and yet one returns to give thanks.

I think that shows us something about what is happening within them. Nine see the whole of their relationship with God as mediated by the rules. They just have to follow all of them, check every box, and everything will be all right.

But one, the foreigner, the Samaritan, recognizes that something more is going on. The rules may well be important, even essential. But at their heart is a relationship with God himself.

He recognizes that he needs to thank God personally, because God has loved him personally. God has chosen to reach into his own life and bring about this miracle. He ought to give thanks for that.

We need to look at our own spiritual lives in the same way. It would be easy to live an entire life thinking, “I’ve followed all the rules. I’ve kept all the precepts of the Church. I’ve never broken any of them. I receive Communion each year, I go to confession each year, and I’ve done all those things. I’ve checked the boxes, so everything is fine.”

That wouldn’t be an evil life by any means. It isn’t easy to do all of that. But it would not be the life we are called to.

As the old catechism says, the purpose of our life is to know, love, and serve God. And “know” in that sentence means to know him personally: to know God as you know a friend. That is what we are called to, a personal relationship with him.

The rules do help mediate that relationship. They keep us on the right path, walking in the right direction, so that we don’t simply go off on our own. But they are not sufficient in themselves. We have to seek him out personally, in what we offer him and in the time we spend in conversation with him, the conversation we call prayer.

Because ultimately, God has called us to a personal relationship. He calls each of us individually. God loves you, and he loves you uniquely. His love for you is different from his love for your neighbor, your spouse, or your friend. He loves you for you, and he wants a relationship with you.

We have to try actively to cultivate that relationship. The rules alone will never get us there. Yet it is so easy to fall back on them as if they achieve everything.

So we need to look at ourselves and ask: Am I truly seeking that personal relationship day by day? Do I believe that God is my friend, or even that he desires friendship with me? Do I seek him out? Or do I simply check the boxes and think that will be enough? Do I think that merely avoiding sin and public scandal is enough to bring me to eternal life?

Because that is what he is offering us: life with him, personally, in a relationship that can last forever.