Then as Jesus entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner? And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:12-19)
Though social hygiene demanded that lepers keep a great social distance between themselves and everyone else, these lepers gained the attention of Jesus by shouting and yelling to Him. Even social outcasts have access to Christ, and we should not dissuade those we deem as social outcasts from coming to Christ to seek His mercy and love. Today shouting won’t help Jesus hear us as He hears even the silent prayers of our minds, yet sometimes we feel that He is distant from us and our troubles and sorrows. We can pray with more fervor even in the silence of our hearts. The lepers were repulsive to people, and yet Christ also heard their plaintive petition. St Gregory Palamas comments:
“As the evangelist Luke will tell us today, when the Lord was going up to Jerusalem, as He was entering a certain town on the way, ten lepers met him ‘which stood afar off: and they lifted up their voices’ (Luke 17:12-13). The evangelist does well to stress that the lepers did not meet Him after He had entered the town, but as He was entering it, because they were driven out of towns and villages as unclean, and lived around the outside of them. They also ‘stood afar off’, since even outside it was not permitted that they should associate with healthy people. They lifted up their voices, meaning they shouted, because of the intervening distance, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us’ (Luke 17:13). See our suffering, see our shame, see the ugly, disgusting and unnatural surface of our skin, for such is leprosy; see the perversion of nature, men’s revulsion, our inconsolable isolation, and in having mercy grant us healing. ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.’” (The Homilies, p 504)
Fraternized 