Midweek Devotion 7 October 2025

Reading

Luke 17:11-13

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

Devotion

Today's painting, French artist James Tissot's "The Healing of Ten Lepers (Guérison de dix lépreux)," lives in the Brooklyn Museum.  Unfortunately, it is not currently on display and so only viewable as part of their online collection.  Tissot created this piece from 1886-1896.  Can you imagine working on a painting for ten years?

The nature of borderlands is emphasized by the sprawling, rocky landscape in the foreground, standing in stark contrast to the rolling, pastoral setting of the background which include olive groves and a village.  Tissot travelled extensively in the Holy Land seeking to incorporate a genuine sense of realism into his works.  The colors, the setting, the postures, all contribute to the encounter scene he is creating.  His style and method for this painting are gouache in nature.  More on this style may be found here: Gouache - Wikipedia.  The opaque rendering makes it a bit ethereal for me and perhaps timeless.

In my mind's eye I can see Jesus, the border walker, present in today's world.  There are certainly an abundance of borders he could walk these days.  If you want to see where Jesus is at work, bringing healing and reconciliation, pick some arena of life and ponder it, dear reader.  Perhaps in your own life there are borderlands, places that need the rewilding love found in the Son of God, who seeks to return us to the primordial experience of life in the Garden before separation from our Source became the norm?  Where do you, dear reader, walk on a borderland and seek to draw people together in love?  May you have eyes to see, however opaquely, the work of the One who is one with the Father!

Prayer

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is

hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where

there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where

there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where

there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to

be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is

in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we

are born to eternal life. Amen. (A Prayer Attributed to St. Francis, whose feast day was 4 October)