On September 3, 1854
Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O., preached a sermon, of which the following notes survive:

Disease the Type of Sin

1. INTROD.—About the ten lepers in the Gospel.

2. Description of leprosy as a disease. What it was.

3. It made the person (1) deformed—(describe)—swollen and disgusting; (2) it was lasting, not like a fever; (3) incurable.

4. Lepers were driven out of society, they were so loathsome; and they became like beasts. Travellers describe them now as outside the cities in troops.

5. Now all this is sin. Go through the particulars, as the angels see it. Describe our souls.

6. Since we are one and all sinners, we do not understand it. But the angels must revolt from us, but for their love. We are an exception to the intellectual creation—except the devils.

7. Parallels: (1) a person with a bad temper; (2) a vulgar person—we shrink from them.

8. Yet our Saviour loved us, in spite of all this.

9. Enlarge on this. Take the cases of saints: (1) tending the leper; (2) sucking sores; (3) Father Claver with the Blacks; yet all this is nothing to Christ['s charity to us].

10. Here, to say nothing else, [is] difference from our Lady. She had never seen heaven.

But He came [from heaven] among us, and now gives Himself to us in the Holy Eucharist. You know how we shrink from dirt, etc.

11. Thus we have at once two thoughts—humility and thankfulness. How can we be proud of anything we are? How can we not love Christ?