|
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Today's Gospel reading (Luke 17,11-19) is about gratitude, a quality
which should be so natural and yet which is so seldom met with amongst
us.
In a certain medieval catechism everything that is said about God in the
Holy Scriptures is summarised under "faith", and everything that we so
often refer to as our “duty” to God, to our fellow men, to ourselves, is
collected under the beautiful heading "On Gratitude." And indeed, if in
truth God is what He is, if He is what we know Him to be in His dealings
with us, in His mercy, His endless patience, His responsiveness, the way
in which He revealed Himself to us and gave His life for us, then what
remains for us but just to live in gratitude, in such a way that God
should rejoice in us? And that could be the final word.
If only we could be filled with wonder at what God is like, and respond
with thanksgiving! If only we could be filled with wonder at the amount
of love and care that is given us by people, and from gratitude respond
by living in such a way as to make their lives easy, to turn them into a
festival! We must pause to think about this because we are so richly
endowed, and we live so meanly.
Let us consider the story in today's Gospel. Ten lepers came to Christ,
unclean people who had no right even to approach Him or to touch Him.
Christ cured them, and only one returned to thank Him and give glory to
God, and that was a stranger, not "one of us". It is a terrifying
thought that we are so rich in the knowledge of God, His grace, His
gifts and yet, in our attitude to all that He gives us, calmly cold. But
sometimes a person who is deprived comes along, a stranger, not one of
us, who would give all that he possesses for one moment of what we have
all our lives. And he knows how to give thanks. How perverse everything
is!
We should be a society that lives in wonder about God, in gratitude,
with the desire to please Him and comfort our neighbour. That is all
that we need to do. May God give us a living, responsive heart, a
grateful heart capable of giving thanks not only in words but with our
whole lives. Amen.
|
