11 November 2026 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.” Luke 17:15–16
Ten lepers cry out from a distance, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Jesus sends them to the priests, and on the way they are cleansed. All ten are healed; only one comes back, praising God aloud and falling at Jesus' feet. He is a Samaritan, a foreigner. Jesus tells him: “Your faith has made you well,” literally “has saved you”. Ten received healing; one received salvation, because he turned back to the Healer.
Paul tells Titus that God “saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit”. Baptism is our cleansing; gratitude is our turning back. St Martin of Tours, a soldier who shared his cloak with a beggar and later became a monk and bishop, lived out that gratitude in mercy toward the poor.
Theme: “The one who returned.”
Cleansed by mercy, we turn back in thanks, and thanks becomes mercy.
“So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.” 2 Kings 5:14
“When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean.” Luke 17:14
Apply: Renew your baptismal promises tonight.
“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits.” Psalm 103:2
“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.” Luke 17:15–16
Apply: Make your next prayer only thanksgiving.
“Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” Isaiah 58:7
“And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’” Matthew 25:40
Apply: Give a garment to someone in need.
Grace received calls for grace returned.
Be the one who comes back.
Take-home resolution: Keep a gratitude list this week: three thanks each night.
Dear friends, ten lepers stood at a distance and cried out: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Jesus sent them to the priests, and on the way they were cleansed (Luke 17:12–14). All ten were healed. Only one came back, praising God with a loud voice and falling at Jesus' feet, and he was a Samaritan, a foreigner.
Jesus asks: were not ten made clean? Where are the other nine? And to the one who returned he says: your faith has made you well (Luke 17:17–19), or, as the word also means, has saved you. Ten received healing; one received salvation, because he came back to the Healer.
Paul reminds Titus that God saved us not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5). Everything begins with mercy, and mercy received calls for thanks.
Today we remember St Martin of Tours, the soldier who shared his cloak with a beggar and saw Christ wearing it that night. Gratitude turned into generosity. Let us keep a list this week: three thanks each night, and one act of mercy each day. Amen.
Children, only one leper said thank you to Jesus. Let us be like him! Tonight, tell Jesus three things you are thankful for.
Lord Jesus, you have cleansed me in the waters of Baptism. Let me not be like the nine who forgot, but turn back each day to thank you, and like St Martin share what I have with the poor. Amen.
Paul reminds Titus what Christians once were and what God has done: “he saved us … through the water of rebirth”. In the Gospel ten lepers are healed, but only one, a Samaritan, comes back to give thanks. Baptism and the Eucharist meet here: we are washed by mercy, and the right answer to mercy is thanksgiving.
Setting.
Paul ends his instructions to Titus with how Christians should live in society: obedient to lawful authority, ready for good work, gentle to all. The reason is not social respectability but memory: we too were once lost, and God saved us by mercy.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,” (3:4)
“he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” (3:5)
Salvation is pure mercy. Our works follow it; they do not buy it.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism uses these words as one of the names of Baptism: “the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1215). The whole Trinity is at work in vv. 4–7: the Father’s kindness, the Spirit poured out, through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Setting.
Jesus is travelling along the border between Samaria and Galilee. Lepers had to live apart and call out from a distance (Leviticus 13:45–46). Only a priest could declare them clean and allow them back into the community (Leviticus 14).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.” (17:15)
All ten were cleansed; one saw. Seeing what God has done is the start of thanksgiving.
“Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”” (17:19)
The Greek verb also means “has saved you”. The nine were healed in body; the Samaritan received more.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that every event and need can become an offering of thanksgiving (CCC 2638), and that the Eucharist is above all thanksgiving to the Father (CCC 1360). At Mass we are invited to be the one who turns back.
St Martin of Tours (died 397) was a soldier and still a catechumen when, at Amiens, he cut his cloak in half for a freezing beggar. His biographer Sulpicius Severus tells that Christ appeared to him that night wearing the half cloak, and that Martin then asked for Baptism (in substance). He became a monk and then Bishop of Tours. Today’s two readings meet in his story: the water of rebirth, and a life of thankful love.