In the first reading this Sunday we encounter the episode of Namaan the Syrian general who was healed of his leprosy by bathing in the Jordan seven times. Those familiar with allegorical readings of scripture, or reading the scriptures for the prefiguring of Christ and the sacraments, will recognize in this episode the prefiguring of the sacrament of baptism – which cleanses our spiritual body from the wounds of original sin.
After this baptism in the Jordan, Namaan returns grateful to the prophet Elisha and offers gifts which are refused. Finally, Namaan begs Elisha:
If you will not accept,
please let me, your servant, have two mule-loads of earth,
for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice
to any other god except to the LORD.
St. Ephrem the Syrian, a fourth century doctor of the Church, suggests that this request from Namaan should have shamed Israel, since unlike them, Namaan believed that “even the dust of their land was filled with God.”
And this is the question that we, brothers and sisters, those baptized, whether in Goa, or elsewhere, but especially in Goa should ask ourselves; do we realise that with our baptism as a people, the land too was baptized? Along with our souls, our land was also claimed for Christ!
As the psalm today sings:
Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
his right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.
The victory that He won in Goa, was to not only claim a holy people for Himself, but to also claim this land as His; so that from this bastion of the faith missionaries – like St. José Vaz – would stream out to consecrate more nations to Him and to continually sanctify these baptized nations.
Indeed, entire generations of Goans, and other nations who were baptized before us, realized the immensity of the gift that they had been given. By committing themselves to the propagation of the gospel to other nations, and supporting the sacred cult here in Goa, they embodied the gratitude of the single Samaritan leper who we heard today returned to Our Lord to thank Him for being healed.
And one of them, realizing he had
been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
There is, however, something amiss in this Catholic project that Goans have been handed by Our Lord. Our thanksgiving no longer rings out in a loud voice. We are no longer committed to this project. And not only have we abandoned the project of the proclamation of the Gospel, but we are shamefully abandoning the land, and worse, selling it off to the highest bidder! One knows of cases of Goans in Canada, the USA, Australia, Europe, who think nothing of selling entire hillsides!
In this way we participate in the dechristianization of a land that was purchased for Christ not only with His precious blood, but the blood of his martyrs – think of those in Cuncolim – but the hundreds of missionaries who came to us via Portugal. Take the case of the reverend José Paulo da Costa Pereira d’Almeida, buried here in this cathedral. As his tombstone tells us, he came here at a young age, eventually becoming Dean of this Sé, and with the funds at his disposal founded, cultivated, and embellished the town of Quepem. All for the sake of Christ!
These men, our spiritual ancestors, took heart from the words we hear today from St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy:
if we persevere
we shall also reign with him.
This call to perseverance is also directed to us, my dear brothers and sisters. We should cherish the Christian soil of Goa and not let this hard-won earth be dechristianised. To do so would be shameful, and I dare say sinful! Be aware, my dear brothers and sisters, that I am not asking you to participate in a campaign of keeping people out. Rather, I am asking you not to sell the lands of your ancestors to the highest bidder; like some contemporary Judas selling our Lord for a meagre thirty silver coins!
Indeed, these lands do not even belong to us, but to the comunidades that gave them to us. These institutions may have preceded the Christianisation of these lands, but they were also profoundly altered by Christianity, becoming patrons of the cult and institutions that governed these territories along Christian principles. How else can we account for the profound difference that one could, and perhaps still can, see between Goa and the surrounding regions that are geographically not very different from ours?
Many of us claim that we leave Goa, which begins the process of our land’s dechristianization, because we seek better opportunities. One may have reasons. But do listen with fresh ears to the words of St. Paul today:
Beloved:
Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David:
such is my gospel, for which I am suffering,
even to the point of chains, like a criminal.
But the word of God is not chained.
Therefore, I bear with everything for the sake of those who are chosen,
so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus.
And therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, I too ask you, before you leave this land, before you sell your lands, “Remember Jesus Christ!” and may be suffer with Him, for the sake of the gospel, and eventually, salvation. For remember,
if we persevere
we shall also reign with him.
(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful at the Cathedral parish of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Old Goa on 11 October 2025.)
(Image reference: Thirty pieces of silver, Gene D. Austin, undated.)
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