Lec
# 144- 28th Sun of OT- Oct 13, 2013- Fr. Bresowar
My
brothers and sisters, it is a wonderful and awesome privilege to be here today
to celebrate this mass with you.
I
don’t know if I tell God how thankful I am to be able to do this every week,
every day! But I should, it is a wonderful thing to be a priest. It is a
wonderful life, a life of service and love, prayer and sacrifice, but immense
joy.
In
today’s readings we are reminded of the need to approach God with a spirit of
Gratitude. God gives us everything, our lives, our breath, our family, food,
our health, everything. Too often we forget this, we forget, because of our
troubles and sufferings, what it is that God has done for us. And then instead
of approaching him with gratitude, too often we only approach him with a spirit
desperation.
If
we could truly comprehend what exactly it is that God has done for us, we would
never stop thanking him. In fact, Heaven, if we are so fortunate enough to go,
will be an eternal thanksgiving to God. An eternal Eucharist, where we will
spend eternity praising and glorying the Lord of the Universe.
However,
here, while we try to persevere as St. Paul said in the second reading, it can
be difficult to remember to glorify God with every thought and action that we
possess.
This
is because, like the lepers in the Gospel, we are still sick with disease. They
suffered leprosy. We suffer too, different diseases, and particularly the
disease of sin and self-centeredness.
Back
in the time when Jesus walked on earth, leprosy was considered the worst of all
conditions one could suffer with.
It was and still is an incurable
and deadly disease. It is a bacterial infection that causes the
extremities of the body fingers and toes, hands and feet, nose, ears, and
mouth - to die and slowly rot away, even while the person remains alive. It was so contagious
that even the lepers' closest relatives did not dare to come near
them. In ancient times, lepers were required to live in isolated colonies.
If they had to travel, the law required them to ring a bell
wherever they went, shouting out, "Unclean! Unclean!" This explains
why these ten lepers addressed Christ "from a distance", as St
Luke points out.
On top of the isolation,
lepers had to live with the almost unbearable pain and stench of their
own decaying bodies.
Leprosy was a long, humiliating, and
dismal agony, the most horrible of ancient diseases.
And yet Jesus frees the lepers from
their agony and gives them a brand new life.
They
went to Jesus in their time of desperation because they understood that Jesus
could heal them. And yet, only one of them actually came back to give him
thanks
How
many of us only go to Jesus when we need something? And when we receive what it
is we need or want, how many of us forget to thank him?
We
recognize what Jesus has done for us; that is why we are here today. And yet,
the challenging message of the Gospel is go even deeper, so that we might
develop an attitude of gratitude which recognizes a need to be thankful at all
times, and not just every once in a while.
Why?
Why does God want us to be thankful? Is God an egomaniac? Does God have low
self-esteem? Does he need us to make himself feel better?
Of
course not!
God
wants us to practice the virtue of Gratitude not simply for himself, but for
us. He loves us, and knows the value of gratitude. It is gratitude that enables
us to remember that we are loved by God. And we need to remember that God loves
us, because if we forget this, it can make this journey even more difficult
than it already is.
As scripture
reminds us in the letter to the Hebrews, “What gives
true strength to a man's heart," it says, "is gratitude"
(Heb 13:9).”
God's capacity for love is much greater than any mere human
being's. It's infinite.
Knowing that we are loved by God, then, is the only way to
satisfy one of the two deepest needs of the human heart: the need to know
that we are loved without limit and without conditions.
Gratitude keeps our attention
on God's goodness to us, on the expressions of his love for us.
It makes sure we never
forget that we are loved - which is the only source of lasting
joy in this world full of difficulties. When we neglect it, we start focusing
on ourselves, on our own achievements, on our own desires - but none of
those things can satisfy this fundamental need of our soul.
Just as no reservoir
can keep itself full - it needs to be fed by a source outside
itself, higher than itself. When we find ourselves becoming habitually
bitter, angry, frustrated, stressed, or depressed, it's because our reservoir
is getting low. That's when we need to look back to God and his love,
and open the floodgates of gratitude.
The more thankful we are, the
more we will experience God’s love for us. We will never forget how much he
loves us if we always practice the virtue of gratitude. Be thankful in the
morning, thankful in the afternoon, and thankful in the evening and night. To
God we give thanks forever and ever. Amen.
