Every week outside our church, hundreds of these little acorns get swept up by generous parishioners. They cover the walkway, and unfortunately, can turn into a hazard. So, every week, out come the leaf blowers, and into a large bucket they go.
But if you think about it, these acorns are an opportunity to pause in awe. Because every one of them— small enough to fit between your fingers — has within it the power to become like the two oaks standing out front today.
Something so small, easily swept away, carries the potential for strength, beauty, and longevity beyond our lifetime. And it reminds us God often works the same way in other things — things small and ordinary, yet holding unbelievable grace in them.
We see it in our Scripture today. God’s greatest works often begin in ways that seem small or ordinary.
There’s nothing flashy about washing in a muddy river, or walking down a dusty road to see a priest.
Yet through those simple acts of faith, Naaman and the ten lepers were healed.
The extraordinary grace of God was hidden in ordinary obedience—just like the power of a great oak hidden inside the smallest acorn.
A little background: The disease of leprosy back then was a death sentence — physically, socially, and spiritually. It slowly consumed the body.
Even worse, it separated people from their families and from worship. Lepers were the outcasts of society — unseen, untouched, unloved.
In the first reading, Naaman, a powerful Syrian commander, finds himself afflicted by this terrible disease. He seeks out the prophet Elisha, expecting some grand and dramatic gesture.
But Elisha doesn’t even come out to meet him. He simply sends a message: “Go wash in the Jordan seven times and you will be cleansed.”
Naaman’s insulted. He wanted something big, something that would feel worthy of the miracle he desired. But the cure was found in the ordinary – ordinary waters of an ordinary river. Only when Naaman humbles himself, obeys in faith, and steps in the water does healing come.
His response: Gratitude — he returns to Elisha, confessing the God of Israel alone is the true God.
In our Gospel, ten lepers cry out to Jesus asking not for pity, but for mercy. Jesus doesn’t touch them or make a spectacle. He simply says, “Go show yourselves to the priests.”
Again, an ordinary command. And as they go, they are healed.
Yet only one returns to give thanks. Only one recognizes not just the gift, but the Giver. To that one, Jesus says, “Your faith has saved you.”
Both stories reveal a truth we often forget: God works through the ordinary. The healing power wasn’t in the river, or the walk, or even in the words themselves—it was in their faith through which God was able to act.
We see the same truth every time we come to Mass.
Outsiders might look at the altar and see only bread and wine. And even our senses tell us the same: it looks like bread, feels like bread, tastes like bread.
But faith tells us something deeper. As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote:
“The presence of Christ’s true body and blood in this sacrament cannot be detected by the senses, nor by understanding, but only by faith.”
The same’s true with the person of Jesus. Our senses tell us he was only human – he walked like a human, talked like a human, ate like a human – but through faith, God allows us to see he was much more than that.
He was the Son of God. Human and divine.
Our senses perceive one thing, but faith reveals something else. And today the same Jesus who once walked among lepers and sinners now appears among us in humility, hidden under the appearance of bread and wine.
The same truth is at work in another sacrament — the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
The words of the priest — “I absolve you from your sins” — sound simple, almost ordinary. But when they are spoken with the authority of Christ that the priest received at his origination and received in faith, they unleash a miracle every bit as real as Naaman’s healing or the cleansing of the ten lepers.
Through those few words, a soul diseased by sin’s made clean.
Still, many of us hesitate to go. Some say, “I can just tell God I’m sorry on my own.” And of course we should speak to God directly and tell him that.
But Jesus, knowing we need to hear his mercy spoken aloud, gave us this sacrament as a way for us to experience His forgiveness, not just spiritually but physically — through hearing powerful words, “I absolve you.”
Others say, “I don’t need to tell another person my sins.” But that same pride almost kept Naaman from washing in the Jordan. HE wanted to decide how God should heal him. It was only when he humbled himself – and obeyed the way God had chosen to heal him – that healing came.
The same’s true for us: God meets us where we are, but He also asks us to trust the way He has chosen to work.
Christ never tires of forgiving us. He rejoices every time we come back to him in the sacrament in faith.
And that’s what confession is: an act of faith, like Naaman entering the river or the lepers walking toward the priests. We trust God’s promise is true — that when we confess, He forgives.
Through this simple, ordinary act of humility, God does something extraordinary. He restores us, cleanses us, and welcomes us back home.
There's a saying, that no matter how far you've walked away from God, the return trip is only one step.
Thanks be to God.
So we should respond as Naaman and the Samaritan did: with awe, wonder, and gratitude for each of the ordinary ways God makes Himself present to us.
He comes in water poured over a baby’s head.
He comes in a small wafer of bread.
He comes in the quiet words of absolution whispered through a screen.
And He comes in the daily moments we might otherwise overlook – the smile of a child, someone holding the door for us, someone asking for forgiveness.
If we have faith to see it, the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Every week those acorns get swept up outside the church, a nuisance to be cleared away. But each one holds the potential to become something lasting and life-giving.
In the same way, every small act of faith — a prayer, a confession, a moment of gratitude — plants a seed of grace that can grow into something mighty.
The acorn becomes the oak.
Bread becomes Christ.
Words become forgiveness.
God still hides greatness in what seems small, simple, and ordinary. The question is: will we notice? Will we respond in faith? Will we return to give thanks?
Will we hear: “Your faith has saved you”?