In today's gospel, we hear the story of the healing of the 10 lepers, one of whom alone returns to thank Jesus.

Are you more like the 9? Or like the 1?

You have probably received a forward of the internet e-mail with the subject line 9-11. It went like this.
Yesterday, we were angry at our kids for coming home late for their curfew. Today, we hugged them because they were home safe.

Yesterday, people were upset that they had to wait 6 minutes in a fast food drive through line. Today people didn't care about waiting up to 6 hours to give blood for the dying.

Yesterday, we were irritated that our rebate checks had not arrived. Today, we gave money away to people we had never met. And so the e-mail continued in like vein. People suddenly aware of the preciousness of life. Yet a month later, do we live with the same awareness?

Seems I am not so different from the 9 in today's gospel. The healing that they had sought and dreamed about happened. A miracle in their eyes? Perhaps. But an ordinary one. People with rashes and pimples and eczema were declared unclean until the rash disappeared. And once it was gone, the normal process of going to the priest to declare them 'clean' would occur. Perhaps the 10 had full-blown leprosy. Perhaps it was a recurring rash and they needed someone to tell them it was okay to approach the priests. Regardless, they were healed. And then, because they had been outcasts for so long, and the family business was not thriving under their younger brother's leadership, and they missed their spouse, they returned home - to the places where they had left, the families they were separated from - and resumed life as normal. It was just an ordinary miracle. An ordinary miracle. So it went unnoticed and unthanked and unrecognized.

The sun rose again this morning. You walked on two functional, healthy legs to get here tonight. Synapses are working in your brain so that you can convert the syllables that I speak into meaningful constructs. Your heart beat over 100,000 times today. You breathed and oxygen was transferred from the alveolar chambers of your lungs to the hemoglobin in your blood and from there to all the parts of your body. Ordinary miracles. Amazing things which we take for granted day after day and moment after moment.

When was the last time that you thanked God for being able to breathe? For the person behind you in church who sings off key, because it means that you can hear? For the mess to clean after a party, because it means that you have friends who love you? For the clothes that fit just a bit too snug, because it means that you have more than enough food to eat? For the joy you felt as the wind touched your face during a morning run? Ordinary miracles that become so common place we forget to notice. We don't make the connection between the giver and gift.

Except for the Samaritan. Except for people who lived through Sept. 11 to see the 12th and 13th and 14th. Ordinary miracles become things of deep meaning when we make the connection between the gift and the giver of the gift. Healing becomes Salvation when the Samaritan makes that connection. "Go your way, your faith has been your salvation."

Were they so different - these nine - from you and I? I fear less than we might want to admit. Because it is so easy to get caught up in the business of life that we forget to make the connection. We take the "ordinary miracles' for granted, and thus lose our soul in the process.

I invite you to a simple response to the gospel this week. Keep a pad and paper around. (or make a new memo for the palm pilot.) Call it: Ordinary Miracles. And each time that you notice one, write it down. Write it down... And then, each night, like the Samaritan, return to Jesus in your prayer, with great thankfulness and praise. For then you will also hear Jesus saying to you: "Go your way, your faith has been your salvation."