Thanksgiving 2024 - A life ordered by gratitude

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone. 

This Thanksgiving morning we read first from chapter 50 of the book of Sirach. 

The author of the book of Sirach, named Ben Sira was a Jewish scribe and scholar living in Jerusalem during the Hellenistic period, about two hundred years before the birth of the Lord.  In Jewish society, Ben Sirach’s primary duty was to study the Law and the Prophets and the accumulated wisdom of Israel, and then transmit that knowledge by training others. And so throughout the 51 chapters of his book, he dispenses wisdom to his students. He teaches about family values, friendship, finding a worthy spouse, and offers timeless teaching for living a good, ethical, and holy life touching upon how the virtues of honesty, humility, and justice need to be lived out in personal relationships, business dealings, or community engagement.

At after dispensing his wise teachings, as we heard today, he offers a simple prayer for those who took the time to listen to his wisdom: May God grant you joy of heart and may peace abide among you; May his goodness toward us endure in Israel to deliver us in our days.

When your life is ordered, ordered by wisdom, ordered toward God, the result is joy and peace and goodness and deliverance. 

Today our nation celebrates Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, gratitude, is a key element in a rightly ordered life. If we are not grateful for the blessings we enjoy and possess, then something essential is missing in our hearts.

And that brings us to the Gospel today, where we hear the story of the ten lepers healed by Jesus. Only one of them, a Samaritan, returns to give thanks. Jesus’ response is striking: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”

This Gospel challenges us to reflect on the disordered nature of taking blessings for granted. The other nine lepers experienced healing, yet they did not turn back to acknowledge the source of their newfound wholeness. Only one recognized the magnitude of what had been done for him and expressed his gratitude. His gratitude not only completed his healing but also deepened his relationship with the Lord.

Gratitude is essential for living a life ordered toward God because it reminds us of our dependence on Him. It draws us closer to the One who is the source of every blessing. When we practice gratitude, we become more aware of God’s presence and goodness in our lives, and this awareness brings peace and joy.

This Thanksgiving, as we gather with family and friends around our tables, we have the perfect opportunity to practice this virtue. These moments of fellowship, sharing stories, laughter, and food, are a tangible expression of God’s blessings in our lives. They are opportunities to be like the one leper who returned, giving thanks not only for the material blessings but for the relationships, memories, and love that enrich our lives.

We fittingly begin Thanksgiving today around the Lord’s table—giving Eucharistic thanks for the gift of our salvation. And ss you share in Thanksgiving dinners today, I encourage you to pause and truly thank God for the gifts of family, friendship, and faith. Lead your families in turning to God in thanksgiving so that your family may know joy of heart, peace among you, and His enduring goodness, today and always for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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With hearts full of gratitude for God’s blessings, we come before Him in prayer, asking for His grace and mercy in our lives and in the lives of all His people.

For the Church, that she may continually lead the faithful to live lives of gratitude and grace, giving thanks for the blessings of salvation and grace.

For our nation, that on this day of Thanksgiving, people of all faiths and backgrounds may pause to recognize the blessings of freedom, peace, and abundance, and turn their hearts to God in gratitude.

For the safety of travelers, the peaceful resolution of all family divisions and national hostilities, for protection from disease, for the lonely and forgotten, and harmony amongst all those who gather together today.

For the protection of our armed forces, police, and firemen and all those who risk their lives to preserve the security of our country.  

For those gathered with family and friends today, that their fellowship may be a reflection of God’s love, and for those who are alone, grieving, or in need this Thanksgiving, that they may find comfort in the Lord’s presence and in the kindness of others

For the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the sick, the aged, the lonely, the grieving, those who are out of work, those who are facing financial difficulties, those with addictions, and the imprisoned: that God will draw close to them, and bless them with grace and peace.

For the faithful departed, that they may be welcomed into the eternal joy of God’s kingdom and join the heavenly hosts in singing God’s praises.

Almighty and loving God, You are the source of all that is good. Hear our prayers and accept our thanksgiving for the many blessings You have bestowed upon us. May our lives always be a reflection of Your goodness as we give You thanks and praise through Christ our Lord.

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 - Obedience and Gratitude

 

In ancient Israel, no one was more pitiable than a leper.

The book of Leviticus prescribed that in order to avoid contact with others, the leper had to shout “Unclean! Unclean!” as they passed by and couldn’t come within 50 yards of a healthy person. They were prohibited from entering towns, they were cut off from their family, they were barred from Temple worship. Theirs was a life of total isolation: no friendship or family, no sense of belonging, no affection. And in today’s gospel we meet 10 of them.

10 Lepers stood off at a distance and shouted to Jesus. But instead of shouting “Unclean” they cry out to be cleansed. “Jesus, master, have pity on us!” Their cry echoes so many of the psalms in which the suffering cry out to God for healing, strength, relief, protection, and forgiveness. And Jesus heard them and heeded their plea. 

In Jewish law, in order for a leper to be readmitted to society, a priest had to declare them cured of their disease. So, Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests. And on their way to the priest, the 10 were miraculously healed. 

Earlier in the Gospel of Luke an individual leper was healed by the Lord, and given the same instruction to show himself to the priest after he was healed. In the case of the 10 lepers, they are instructed to show themselves to the priest before the healing takes place, and they are healed on the way to the priest. It’s as if their obedience to the command of Jesus was the catalyst for their healing miracle. 

And there’s a lesson for us there. All 10 lepers show obedience to the Master, all 10 are healed, for obedience to God is healing. Our first sin—the sin of Adam and Eve was one of disobedience. God told them, do not eat of the tree. And they disobeyed. They ate. 

And every subsequent sin of ours—is one of disobedience. God tells us to guard our tongues and speak no evil—we disobey. God tells us to avoid gluttony and lust and greed and pride—and we disobey. Jesus tells us to love our enemy, forgive those who wrong us, feed the hungry, repent of our sins—and we disobey. 

And whenever we disobey God—that introduces disorder—the world and our lives are not as they should be. Our souls are further wounded and diseased, our minds our clouded, our wills are weakened against further sins. And we require healing and mercy that can only come from God. And thanks be to God he offers us that healing and mercy lavishly. Especially in the Sacrament of Confession.

Disobedience brings disorder. But all 10 lepers in the Gospel story, obey, and all are healed. Obedience heals, as well. It heals our willfulness, our arrogance, it corrects the waywardness that is ours.  Obedience reclaims the trust we are to have in our creator, to realign our hearts to his. Obedience brings the disordered will back under the dominion of God where it belongs. 

Anyone who is serious about obtaining Everlasting Life in Heaven will do all he can to increase in the virtue of obedience to God. God give me perfect obedience to your Divine Laws and Holy Will.  As one grows in the love of God—obedience becomes lighter than liberty, for His Will becomes our delight. For really, there is no joy to be found outside of the Holy Will of God.

So 10 lepers obey and receive healing. But then…next in the Gospel..we read about the one leper progresses beyond obedience, who returns to Jesus in thanksgiving. After recognizing that the miracle for which they had prayed and longed for had been granted, we would have expected that all 10 lepers would have returned rejoicing to Jesus as if he had raised them from the dead. After all, the curing of their disease meant a new life for them—a restoration to their communities and families and temple. But only one of the ten returned to thank the Lord. He falls on his face in gratitude.

When a parent tries to teach their small children to remember to say “thank you” when after receiving a gift, or if someone does an act of kindness, they usually explain, because it is the nice thing to do.

In Saint Thomas Aquinas’ discussion of the virtues, he explained Justice is the virtue of rendering unto someone what is due to that person.  We pay our debts because it is the just thing to do.  We are faithful to a business contract, because it is the just thing to do.  According to Aquinas, to fail to show gratitude by appropriate words, signs or symbols is a sin against justice. Gratitude is not just a kind thing to do, like icing on the cake—nice but unnecessary. Gratitude is demanded by justice. 

What does the priest say, every single time mass is celebrated, as part of the eucharistic prayer, “It is right and just, our duty and our salvation to give God thanks.” Thanksgiving is demanded by justice. And it gratitude to God is modeled by the Lord himself. As part of the consecration what does the priest say, also, every time mass is celebrated, Jesus took bread, and gave thanks. He took the chalice, and again gave thanks.

Ten lepers were cleansed, but only one fulfilled the demand of Justice, returning to the Lord "throwing himself on his face at the feet of Jesus" and giving him thanks. 

This leper becomes a model for us—he is a model for all Christians. Recognizing the healing that God has worked in our life—we must return to God to give thanks. Every day. Look at the healing God worked in your life, and thank Him. Do not allow yourself to become ungrateful before God. How sad. How terrible is ingratitude.

Chesterton said, “The worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank.” We act atheistically when we are ungrateful. Ingratitude is poison, it begets atheists. Atheists are born from ingratitude. So it should not surprise us, as atheism and irreligion have increased in our culture—that Ingratitude is one of, if not the defining characteristics of our culture. A man who is ungrateful to God will soon treat his fellow man with disdain.  

One way we show our gratitude to God is at Holy Mass of course. The word Eucharist—Eucharistia—means thanksgiving. We come to Mass week after week, not to be entertained, but to fulfill our duty to God—to thank Him—to thank Jesus--for the gift of our salvation. 

Additionally, each week, we do well to get to Mass early, in order to call to mind those additional blessings for which we need to thank God: health, family, material security, the strength we needed to get through that really awful day last week, the grace I needed to bite my tongue when I could have really let loose, the wonderful company I’ve shared lately, the new skills I’ve developed. We do well to count our blessings in the presence of God, and to unite our gratitude with the holy sacrifice of the altar.

But gratitude needs to be more than lip service, no? Gratitude for blessings received is to spill over into our activities: in good works, acts of kindness, goodness, and beauty. 

Ingratitude may be one of our defining vices, but gratitude is a virtue that can be developed, practiced, expressed, and shown. And it is the key to happiness. The grateful soul is a joyful soul. Why are the saints so joyful? Because they have made gratitude to God so central to their identity. Their life is a grateful response to their salvation in Christ.

With the help of the saints, may we cultivate joy by cultivating gratitude, good works, and obedience, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

28th Sunday in OT 2019 - Prayers of Petition and Eucharistic Gratitude

In ancient Israel, no one was more pitiable than a leper.

The book of Leviticus prescribed that in order to avoid contact with others, the leper had to shout “Unclean! Unclean!” as they passed by and couldn’t come within 50 yards of a healthy person. They were prohibited from entering towns, they were cut off from their family, they were barred from Temple worship. Theirs was a life of total isolation: no friendship or family, no sense of belonging, no affection. And in today’s gospel we meet 10 of them.

10 Lepers stood off at a distance and shouted to Jesus. But instead of shouting “Unclean” they cry out to be cleansed. “Jesus, master, have pity on us!” Their cry echoes so many of the psalms in which the suffering cry out to God for healing, strength, relief, and protection. And Jesus heard them and heeded their plea.

In Jewish law, in order for a leper to be readmitted to society, a priest had to declare them cured of their disease. So, Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests. And on their way to the priest, the 10 were miraculously healed. The healing of the 10 lepers in the Gospel parallels the miraculous healing of Naaman the Syrian in the first reading.

Naaman seeks out healing from the God of Israel. Following the instruction of Elisha the prophet, Naaman plunges himself into the waters of the Jordan and emerges healed. God answers the plea for mercy, not just of a jew, but a foreigner.

What about you? What is your plea for mercy? What plea for mercy did you bring to Mass today?  Mercy for yourself, for your family, for our nation, for the world? The experience of suffering brings us to our knees. Prayer for mercy is one reason we come to Church, isn’t it? To plea for mercy? Mercy to end an illness, to end an addiction, to end family division, to end faithlessness, to end our modern day versions of leprosy which bring pain and isolation.

One of the reasons it is good to get to Mass a few minutes early, is so that you have the opportunity to recollect why you are here. Before the beginning of Mass, we do well to articulate to God our personal petitions for mercy, to entrust ourselves to the mercy of God, to plea for miracles.

This is going to sound somewhat strange, but the moment I typed that word, ‘miracles’ this morning as I was composing my homily. I received an email from a parishioner. “Father, a miracle just happened. My liver was failing, and I went to the doctors and they told me I was going to die. A week after you prayed over me, I go to the hospital and the ER doctor told me that my liver is fine, I’m not going to die. Weird, I know. Either that was a miracle or the doctors made a mistake. I had many people praying for me.” Thanks be to God, right? A miracle in our midst!

Miracles are real. Just as the miraculous healing in the Gospel signaled that in Jesus, the kingdom of God was breaking in to human history, modern day miracles are granted that we may know that God is still at work in our lives, that we ought to entrust ourselves to God’s providence and mercy.
Yet, in the Gospel today, the miraculous healing was only the first part of the story.

Having realized that he had been healed through the intervention of Jesus, the one leper, a Samaritan, returns to Jesus to offer his profound gratitude. Again, like Naaman in our first reading, returning to Elisha, confessing the true God of Israel, the Samaritan leper in the Gospel returns to Jesus, and falls on his face before Jesus, recognizing Jesus as God and King.

Here is a second reason we come to Mass every week, to fall prostrate before our God and King who has brought about the healing, not of our bodies, but a more important healing, the healing of our souls from sin. We come to Mass week after week to thank God for the saving grace we received at baptism, the grace won for us through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.

Thanksgiving is at the heart of the Christian life. You’ve no doubt heard the Greek New Testament word for Thanksgiving: it’s the word “Eucharist”…”Eucharistia”, found in our Gospel today; the leper fell on his face before Jesus and offered Eucharistia. It is not a coincidence that “Eucharist” became the word the early Christians gave to their weekly gathering at the altar. They gathered, as do we, to offer God humble thanksgiving for our salvation in Christ Jesus. In Christ, God has done for us, what we could not do for ourselves. He has healed us of the leprosy of sin, which brought alienation from heaven, and isolation from true communion with each other.

Without coming to Mass every week to offer eucharistic thanks, we begin to take our salvation for granted, we take Jesus’ sacrifice for granted, his pain and his suffering offered for us. Without mass, we begin to take God for granted and begin to act as if we are entitled to heaven. We are not. We are not entitled to that which is lost through sin. Without thanksgiving we are like those other 9 lepers who were healed, but did not return to Jesus to offer thanks.

So we come to Mass every week, thanking God for the gift of our salvation. And we thank God for the blessings we’ve received throughout the week and throughout the life. Another reason to get to mass early, to take the time to count our blessings, to recall how we have been blessed this week, how prayers have been answered in our life and in our family, for the health we do have, the safety we have received, the goodness we have enjoyed. Thank God for those who recovered from surgery, for the time you got to spend with those who bring you happiness, for the sweet memories you shared with your spouse, for the word of encouragement when you really needed it, the ability to experience the beauty of nature or a symphony or a church.

Something happens when we offer God true thanksgiving from the heart. Resentment begins to melt away. Envy over the things we don’t have is replaced with gratitude for the things we do. We experience joy over the presence of God dwelling within us. The praise that filled the heart of Jesus begins to fill our heart.

Count your blessings daily, thank God daily, fall on your face daily before the God of Mercy, petition God daily, for the needs of the world and the needs of the Church, pray for miracles, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.