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.

5th Week of Lent 2022 - Tuesday - Listen to his love

 The Israelites in the desert had taken their eyes off of what God was doing for them, and allowed the poison of ingratitude fill their hearts.  God was freeing them from slavery and leading them to the promised land, but their complaints and hardness of hearts allowed poisonous and deadly ingratitude to direct their thoughts, words, and actions. The deadly poison of the Saraph Serpants was a symbol of the even deadlier poison of sin that reigned in them. The brush with death, like for many people, became a wake up call, they realized they sinned and repented. God provided a remedy for the poisonous snake bites but instructing Moses to place the bronze serpent on the pole. All who looked at it would live.

In the Gospel, the Pharisees allowed the poison of pride to fill their hearts. Failing to recognize that Jesus was truly the Son of God, Jesus told the Pharisees that they would die in their sins unless they looked upon him and believed that he was God.  

In these dark times, many have allowed sinful pride and sinful gratitude to dominate their lives. Man Catholics even have stopped looking to the Crucified for life. Many Catholics do not have crucifixes in their homes, they do not go to Church, and worse, they believe there’s nothing wrong. But, it is the task of faithful Christians to hold him up for the world to see—in our speech, in our behaviors, and in our prayers, that they may see him and believe.

The great lover of the Crucified, St. Paul of the Cross, would often go from parish to parish, preaching parish missions.  When he would preach these missions, he would often hold out to the congregation a crucifix, and simply holding the crucifix out for all to see, he would say, “listen to his love.”

He said, "When you are alone in your room, take your crucifix, kiss its five wounds reverently, tell it to preach to you a little sermon, and then listen to the words of eternal life that it speaks to your heart; listen to the pleading of the thorns, the nails, the precious Blood. Oh, what an eloquent sermon!"

Look at the hands of Jesus, always open during life, still open, still giving, healing to the last drop of blood. Look at the feet of Jesus, which climbed the mountain of Calvary, now lifted up and nailed to the cross for our salvation. Look at the side of Jesus from which flowed the blood and water, the fountain of the sacramental life of the Church

If you know of any Catholics who have stopped looking to Jesus, bring them to Mass with you on Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Help them to listen to his love, to see that he reaches out to them from the cross with tremendous love. We are to help them embrace Him, as he longs to bring them mercy, strength, and peace, as he has for us.  As we near Holy Week, may each of us keep his tremendous outpouring of love ever before our eyes, in our mind, and in our hearts, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That God may be pleased to increase faith and understanding in the catechumens and candidates who approach the sacraments of initiation in the coming Paschal Solemnity. 

That those in need may find assistance in the charity of faithful Christians and that peace and security may be firmly established in all places.

For strength to resist temptation, and the humility to sincerely repent of sin.

That through fasting and self-denial, we may be ever more conformed to Christ.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Mercifully hear, O Lord, the prayers of your Church and turn with compassion to the hearts that bow before you, that those you make sharers in your divine mystery may always benefit from your assistance.

October 16 2018 - St. Margaret Mary - Circumcision of Hearts

In ancient Israel, circumcision was a sign of one’s membership in the community. The uncircumcised was seen as less of a man, who had not fulfilled the prescriptions of the law proscribed by God, and therefore unreceptive of the blessing of God.

Israel, however, would be tempted to consider circumcision sufficient to gain a share in the blessings of God. This led Jeremiah the prophet would go so far as to say that physical circumcision had no value in itself, what mattered was the circumcision of the heart. If the greatest command in the Law was to love God with your whole heart and to love your neighbor as yourselves, to circumcise the heart meant to remove all obstacles, all hardness, which kept one from the love which was to characterize God’s people.

St. Paul develops the teaching of the prophets in our first reading today, when he says, “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” What makes one an heir to the kingdom of heaven, is not circumcision, but faith in Jesus Christ which strips the heart of all selfishness, which seeks to imitate Christ’s outpouring of love in his self-sacrifice to the Father. To be a Christian is to seek to make one’s heart like the heart of Christ.
In 1677, Our Blessed Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation nun in France and revealed his Sacred Heart.

She said, “I could plainly see His heart, pierced and bleeding, yet there were flames, too, coming from it and a crown of thorns around it. He told me to behold His heart which so loved humanity.”

The Lord lamented to St. Margaret Mary that he found so few souls on earth who truly loved him. So many lukewarm hearts, so many slothful hearts, so many divided hearts, so many ungrateful hearts, so many hearts indifferent to his sacrifice, hearts that could not care less that the Son of God became man and suffered and died for them. The Lord particularly lamented the irreverence and coldness of his people for the Eucharist, the sacrament of his love.

“Behold this Heart,” the Lord said to Margaret Mary, “which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love. In return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt they have for me in this sacrament of love....”

In order to circumcise our hearts, to strip our hearts of indifference, ingratitude, lukewarmness, and irreverence for the Eucharist, we do well to ponder and behold, like St. Margaret Mary, the Lord’s Sacred Heart, to contemplate his love for us and his suffering for us, to repent of our sins and to engage in the prayer and fasting and penances and works of charity that will enkindle the fire of love for God, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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In reparation to the Sacred Heart for all sin and blasphemy, ingratitude and indifference, we pray to the Lord.
For an increase in faith, hope, and love for all Christians, for a renewed reverence for the Holy Eucharist, we pray to the Lord.
That our children and young people may be kept safe from the poisonous errors of our culture, and that their families may be places where the faith is practiced and cherished.
For all those whose love for God has grown cold, who have fallen into moral laxity or despair of the mercy of God, for all souls in danger of hell, for their conversion and the conversion of all hearts.
For all the needs of the sick and the suffering, the homebound, those in nursing homes and hospitals, the underemployed and unemployed, victims of natural disaster, war, and terrorism, for all those who grieve the loss of a loved one, and those who will die today, for their comfort, and the consolation of their families.
For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, for all of the poor souls in purgatory, for the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, for the deceased clergy and religious of the diocese of Cleveland, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom.
Holy Father, hear our prayers, and enkindle in our hearts the fire of your love, circumcise our hearts to make them evermore like the Sacred Heart of Your Son, who is our Lord forever and ever.