The gospel of today narrates the incident of the 10 lepers who were cured by Jesus Christ. Of them, only one came back to manifest his gratitude, and it seems that Christ missed this gesture on the part of the other nine.
“Were not the 10 made clean? But where are the nine? Has no one been found to return and give glory to God except this foreigner?” (Luke 17:17-18).
I once came across a poster that said, “I was very, very sad because I had no shoes. Until I came across a man who had no feet.”
Very often, we are oblivious of the many blessings that we have received from God; and instead, we complain of the different hardships—always relative in nature—that we experience in our life.
Sometimes, we even blame God for these hardships, without taking into account all the good things He has given us.
In a general way, let us see some of these gifts of God.
In the first place, God gave us the gift of life. We didn’t have to exist at all. And not only that. God continues to sustain us, if He were to forget us for a moment, we would just vanish into nothingness.
Besides that, God decided to make us human beings. As men, we were at the summit of the material universe. We do not follow the laws of our nature blindly, like the irrational creatures. We are free and responsible beings, able to appreciate all the goodness and beauty that surround us.
But the greatest gift of all, a gift we can hardly suspect, is the privilege of becoming children of God. We are called to a destiny that far exceeds even our noble human nature. God has given us the possibility to share His own intimate life, just like a King who has called a poor orphan to become a prince in his own castle.
For all these, we have to be thankful to God. God expects this gratitude from us but He does not expect it out of egoism or selfishness on His part. God gives without seeking any recompense.
In the answer of Christ, we see God’s attitude. “Has no one been found to return and give glory to God?”
God does not seek gratitude for His own sake, like the hen that truts about noisily after having laid an egg. God wants us to be grateful for our sake. The one that benefits from the display of gratitude is the one who give thanks.
By being grateful to God, we are set on the right path in our relationship with God. It makes us more aware of our condition as creatures, and, thus, helps us to relate to God in the only way that we properly and truly can.
The Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer has a wonderful dialogue that we can all profit from. The priest says, “Lift up your hearts,” and we answer, “We lift them up unto the Lord.” Then he continues, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,” and we answer, “It is right to give Him thanks and praise.” The priest proceeds with the prayer, “It is truly right to give Him thanks and praise…” and adds the motivates for that thanksgiving.
Let us be more aware of all the motives for thanksgiving that we have. And we can be assured of a greater union with God and an appreciation of the things around us. Only with a profound sense of gratitude can we be truly happy here on Earth.