What is gratitude, and what does it have to do with faith?

Luke 17: 11–19

As he continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met [him]. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” And when he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” As they were going they were cleansed.

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. He was a Samaritan.

Jesus said in reply, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”

Music Meditations

Healer of My Soul—John Michael Talbot
You Deliver Me—Selah
Wonderful Merciful Savior—Selah
How Great Thou Art—Elvis Presley with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
All Creatures Great and Small—John Rutter

Opening Prayer

How often, Lord, have I taken kindness for granted—that of my family and those around me, and especially your many gracious kindnesses to me. I stop now for a moment and recall where you were present to me in the events of this day …

I thank you for being with me today, even when I did not acknowledge your presence or even realize you were there. Help me to be more aware of your ongoing love and care.

Companions for the Journey

By Father Jude Siciliano, O.P.:

Is there a divine ego trip going on in today’s gospel passage? Why is it important that God be “glorified”? Why does Jesus want to be thanked for his cure of the lepers, especially since he just told the 10 to go show themselves to the priests? Aren’t the others just doing what he told them to do—except for the one Samaritan who “disobeys” and returns? The bible seems to be permeated with scenes or statements that reveal God wants to be thanked and glorified. Why does God want all this attention and acknowledgment in the first place? These are my thoughts upon first reading the cure of the ten lepers. I wonder if similar questions might not arise in the congregation today when this story is proclaimed?

Even the most casual bible reader knows that to have leprosy was to be an outcast in Jesus’ day. The leper was expected to stay apart from the community and cry “Unclean, unclean,” to warn others of his/her disease. A priest would have to pronounce the leper clean and the leper would have to make prescribed offerings before being welcomed back into the community’s social and religious life (Lv. 14: 1-32). So, we can understand Jesus’ telling the lepers to show themselves to the priests. He not only wanted to cure them, he wanted them accepted back into their community. (We can see why sin is likened to leprosy, for it offends and cuts us off from the community. Forgiveness has not just personal but social consequences as well. It’s like being cured of leprosy.) In addition, since illnesses were seen as a punishment from God for sin, if they got official religious recognition of their cure, it would be a sign to them, in their way of thinking, of God’s forgiving them and receiving them back.

Jesus’ sending the lepers to the priests shows he didn’t want to break with the Jewish priesthood and the religious tradition into which he was born. Had the priests acknowledged the cure, they would also be recognizing Jesus’ healing power as having its source in God. Presuming the nine made it to the priests, why didn’t the acknowledgment and approbation of Jesus follow? Were the priests and the institutional religion holding too closely to the privileges that came with religious power? God’s good will and benevolence are all too often thwarted by human blindness and recalcitrance. As one ordained in a church community, the story is a sobering reminder that I might not be open to God’s actions when they occur outside my institutional confines. Rather, as in the case of the layman Jesus, God may very well be acting to heal and unify a broken people outside the sanctuary, on the “road”, the place where this miracle happened.

The lepers are “cleansed,” “as they were going.” So, the cure took place on their trip to the priests. We too are a community walking along together in need of healing. As we walk we talk. What happens as we go along? Plenty of evil and negative experiences, to be sure! But healings as well, for the Spirit works among us in our daily exchanges urging us to compassion, forgiveness, courage, steadfastness and the forming of closer human bonds. We walk along and, like the lepers, God is working to cleanse us. But note the response of the Samaritan leper: “realizing he had been healed.” The Samaritan wakes to a new realization. A healing has happened to him and he knows the source. Through Jesus, God has acted to restore his life, indeed, to give him a new life with Jesus as his center. He “realizes” what has happened to him and he returns to the source to give thanks. God doesn’t need the glory; Jesus doesn’t need the thanks. But in glorifying and giving thanks we are rooting ourselves in the ever deepening awareness of our relationship with the gracious God who constantly acts on our behalf to bring us to wholeness. That is why we gather today at Eucharist, we are calling to mind who our God is and what God has done for us, we the beloved community. As we say in the Preface today, “It is right O God, to give you thanks and praise.”

This band of lepers, who experienced suffering and expulsion were united in their misery. And they were cleansed. But note, one realizes he has been “healed.” That’s more profound than just a physical cleansing—a healing. The man’s next actions show the result of the realization of what really happened to him. He returns to glorify God and give thanks to Jesus. The leper sees that God has acted on his behalf. He also realizes that Jesus was the instrument of God’s healing. It’s as if he woke up from a terrible dream and from this moment his life is completely different; not just because of his cure, but now he sees his life anew in terms of Jesus. Jesus names what has been given the man: he can “stand up and go, your faith has saved you.” Do we realize the healing we have received on our journey, how God has acted through others to restore us or do we chalk them up to our own efforts, plans and achievements?

The other nine lepers probably went about their lives. Certainly there would be much now for them to do: return to their families, kiss their children, or marry and start a family, find gainful employment, perhaps even return to the religious practice from which their leprosy had excluded them. But they would have missed the gift of deeper life that the Samaritan leper came to realize: God had loved him and Jesus was the concrete sign of that love and acceptance. If at any time in the future he might sin and feel like the leper he used to be, he could always call on the name of Jesus and be healed again. Whenever his future thoughts would turn to God, Jesus would be part of the picture. Now he knew he would never have to feel cut off from God, now he knew how close he was to God for he would remember returning and getting close to Jesus, close enough to hear, “your faith has saved you”. He would know what a gift he had received, his faith would remind him of that gift. That’s why God calls us to glorify God and give thanks to Jesus. God wants to be in relationship with us and when we acknowledge the good gifts God has given us, we remember who we are, beloved of God. Or as Father John Kavanaugh, D.J., says:

We will not take full possession of our lives until we learn to give thanks for them. We don’t really own our legs or eyes, our hands and skin unless we’re daily grateful; we don’t really live with our loved ones unless we foster an appreciative, almost contemplative sensitivity to their presence. It is only the loss of them—or the threat of it—that shakes us into an awareness of their manifold grace.…

Gratitude not only empowers the receiver of the gift; it confirms the giver. “You really believe I love you,” the giver says in the heart. It is glorious when someone thanks you.

Might God be more interested in our gratitude than anything else? Was the primal sin ingratitude?

Does it sound like Jesus is commissioning the cured leper? “Stand up and go.” Aren’t those the sounds of discipleship? He has been made confident of God’s love for him, confident enough to get up and go to live that love in the world. Jesus also says these words to us today. We are forgiven our sins at the Eucharist. Gift is given and gratefully received. Now he sends us back to where we live. “Stand up and go.” We, like the leper, “realize” what has been done for us and we go.

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Stand up and go, your faith has saved you

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

When I am thanked for something I have done for someone else how does it make me feel?
Does it validate somehow the efforts I have made?
Does it make me more likely to help out another in the future?
What about God’s feelings?
All the lepers recognized their need and asked for help. Do I recognize my needs honestly?
Am I willing to ask for someone else’s help?
If not, what keeps be back from doing so?
Have I ever asked for help and been refused?
Did this make me unwilling to risk exposing my vulnerability exposing myself to the disappointment of another refusal?
Do I say please and thank you in my everyday exchanges with family and with those I meet each day?
Do I do so because I was taught that this was good manners?
Do I do so because I am aware that gratitude is a proper emotion for a good and fruitful life?
Have I sometimes been distracted or just missed the point of another’s kindness or service to me?
Have I often taken for granted those who have helped me in some way?
Does entitlement (They are only doing their job; they are supposed to help me) somehow impede the feeling of gratitude?
Does my sense of entitlement make me irritable when others have asked me to help them in some way?
Do I expect a reward from others for doing what I should be doing?
Do I expect a reward from God for doing what I should be doing?
When I pray, is my first focus on all the help I need or others need?
When I pray, how often do I say thank you, and do I really mean it, or am I putting on my good manners to win God’s approval?
How often do I focus on some everyday things I am grateful for?
How often do I focus on everyday issues that do not go my way?
How long does gratitude last?
What is the opposite of gratitude?
How hard is it to be complaining and grateful in the same moment?
What are some ways to cultivate a habit of honest, not forced, gratitude?
What, for you is the difference between curing and healing?
Can someone be cured of an illness, and yet not be healed?
Can someone be healed and not be cured?
What do you think, was the faith of the 10th leper?
What do you think he might have done with his life after Jesus said “Stand up and go?”
Have I ever allowed my gratitude for what I have been given to lead me to a new relationship with God?
Jesus is a healer in this story in several ways: He healed people physically, but he also healed relationships and restored these people back to their community. Do I see my religion as one of healing or as one of separating out those who do not belong for one reason or another?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/ Imagination:

I imagine that I am one of the lepers who did not return to thank the person who helped me be cured. Why did I not turn back to thank him? Was it because I was following his instructions to the letter, and being a superstitious and fearful person, did not want to do anything to jeopardize my recovery? Was it because I simply forgot to do so in the joy and excitement of being cured? Was it because I sort of thought that he was just doing his preacher job—performing for the crowds who followed him? Was it because I was still angry that I had suffered from this illness in the first place, and felt I owed no one anything? In the days that followed, after I was reunited with my family and had some time to process the momentous events of that day, did I wonder what ever happened to that man? Did my illness and subsequent recovery make me more understanding of those who have fallen on hard times and more eager to help them? How is gratitude not always in the forefront of people’s minds, especially mine? Has resentment and disappointment blocked it out? Has anger and grief blocked it out? What small habits of gratitude can I cultivate in order to make myself a happier person and in order to thank my God for all he has done for me?

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Memory:

I will extol you, LORD, for you have raised me up, and have not let my enemies rejoice over me. O LORD my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O LORD, you have lifted up my soul from the grave, restored me to life from those who sink into the pit. Sing psalms to the LORD, you faithful ones; give thanks to his holy name. His anger lasts a moment; his favor all through life. At night come tears, but dawn brings joy. I said to myself in my good fortune: “I shall never be shaken.” O LORD, your favor had set me like a mountain stronghold. Then you hid your face, and I was put to confusion. To you, O LORD, I cried, to my God I appealed for mercy: “What profit is my lifeblood, my going to the grave? Can dust give you thanks, or proclaim your faithfulness?” Hear, O LORD, and have mercy on me; be my helper, O LORD. You have changed my mourning into dancing, removed my sackcloth and girded me with joy. So my soul sings psalms to you, and will not be silent. O LORD my God, I will thank you forever.

Recall a painful experience in your life. Let the memories of the event wash over you. How did you deal with the pain? Did you turn to others? Did you pursue mindless pleasure or busy yourself with tasks and obligations in an attempt to ignore how you were feeling? Did you try to buy your way out of unhappiness with what we call “retail therapy”? did you turn to God? What eventually caused the pain to recede and a sort of contentment take its place? When you returned to a place of peace and calmness, did you reflect on what learned from that experience? When you returned to a place of peace and calmness, did you thank God? Did you understand that God was there in all of your pain and recovery? Share with the Lord now your feelings about that event and write your own prayer of thanksgiving.

Poetic Reflection:

This poem, by Mary Oliver (from Thirst), written just after the death of her partner of many years, captures how one sometimes struggles to recover a sense of gratitude in the midst of grief:

"Thirst"

Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.

Closing Prayer

I thank you Lord, for my life. I thank you for all the ways in which you have blessed me. I thank you for all those in my life who have been there for me, supporting me, loving me, even when I was unaware of it. Keep them safe. Lord, I thank you for the glorious world you have created—oceans and mountains, rivers and hills, all the gentle creatures of the forest and the fierce wild beasts who roam the savannas. Help me to show my gratitude for your gift of Mother Earth and all who dwell in it. Keep me ever mindful of the gift of your love and grace, now and forever.

Weekly Reflections

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 9, 2022