A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. On his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus passed along the borders of Samariah and Galilee. As he was entering a village, 10 lepers met him. Keeping their distance, the lepers raised their voices and cried out, Jesus, master, have pity on us. When Jesus saw the lepers, he replied, go and show yourselves to the priests.
On their way to the priests, they were cured. One of them, one of them, one out of the 10, realizing that he had been cured, came back praising god in a loud voice. He threw himself on his face at the feet of Jesus and spoke his praises. This man was a Samaritan. Notice, and that's the bottom of the barrel as as opposed to being Jewish.
Jesus took the occasion to say, were not all 10 lepers made clean? Where are the other nine? Was there no one to return and give thanks to god except this foreigner, this alien, this stranger, this despised Samaritan? Then Jesus said to the man, stand up and go your way. Your faith has been your salvation, and this is the gospel of the lord.
Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Every time I read this particular excerpt from Saint Luke regarding a little incident in our Lord's life, I am reminded of something that happened well, it happened, I guess you could say that, in Detroit about well, it's about eighteen years ago now. I met a gentleman there of considerable means, and we got talking about the virtue of gratitude. Now here is what this gentleman told me, that in the course of his rather long life, he had paid the bill in dollars and cents, U.
S. Currency, not anonymously to a number of young men, a considerable number, by that I mean about a dozen, young men putting them through college. I forget the number, but it was a it was a good sized number. He paid all their bills, and they knew it. He was not anonymous.
Now here is what this gentleman told me, that not from one single man did he ever get even a postcard of thanks. Now, at that time, I don't know of course, I've been holed up, you know, in the ivory Academic Tower. I didn't know anything about life, I guess. But that's true. Absolutely startled me.
Absolutely startled me. Because he went on to say that while people talk about the virtue of gratitude, in his experience it has been the most neglected. And he had, according to him, he had plenty of evidence to prove it. Not a single postcard even, from any one of the young men whose college education he had totally financed in dollars and cents and not anonymously. They knew who he was, he paid the bills.
Now since then, I have had no reason at all to think he was wrong in his estimation of gratitude. It's just fantastic, to me it's absolutely fantastic, that some people cannot say thanks. I'm not exaggerating this. They cannot say thanks. They cannot.
And then they they get all steamed up within themselves because they can't do it. Now, this is probably an exaggerated case, but there's a but in between, I think most of this lack of showing gratitude is plain negligence. It's not ill will, it's just forgetfulness or, what any word you wanna use. I'm not saying it's malicious. In a sense, I wish it were malicious.
Because if it were malicious, it would mean it would be a voluntary act that you could deal with. But this is something that I believe happens by just sheer neglect, lack of thought, indifference, lack of appreciation. I don't think it's any psychological hang up as some as happens with some people. But this was this man's experience. Not a single postcard even from n not from, not one single young man whose college education he had paid in total.
Our blessed Lord fared a little bit better than that, one out of ten. The question is always asked, what happened to those other nine lepers, were they cured or not? I haven't the faintest idea. I'll let you know when I meet them. I don't know what happened to them.
But there's one thing sure, one return to give thanks to Jesus, one. Now, in our own lives, there for the most part, I would say there are two things that are not accentuated enough. And that is, first of all, an appreciation of a situation. That's the first thing. You've got to know that you have reason for gratitude.
You there has to be a cause. Otherwise, it's just a fiction. And and you know how there are people like that, you know, they're going around with thank you on their they're saying it so often, it's it's like the word love, it has no meaning. I'm talking about the honest to God thing that where where there's reason for gratitude. But the first thing to have gratitude is to is to see the reasons, to see them.
Now there's where I think we we often fail. We often fail. Because somebody said, if you get a couple sailors together, all you'll hear about are the near crises or the crisis they experience. They may they may have been sailing for twenty years, and all you'll hear are the storms they faced, how they nearly lost their boat, how somebody nearly drowned. And you said, how often did that happen?
They told you'd never hear anybody talk about the good days, the wonderful things they had. And that's the way it is with most of us. You get a bunch of kids together and let them tell you talk about their school. If you could believe what they're telling you, it would sound like an insane institution. Nobody's reasonable in the in the place.
We're made this way, you see. We see the debit side, we see the red ink. And so the first thing about gratitude is you you've got to see that you have cause for gratitude. One of them is your existence. Do you ever think about that?
Just your existence. Sometimes, maybe, you do it and you'd see, maybe you may think, well, it would be just as well if it didn't exist. Look at yesterday's paper about the suicide of young college students or teenagers. But however that may be, that's the first thing we have to realize that our existence is contingent upon God. And if I know this sounds like a cliche, but when we're in the dumps, when we are afflicted, when tragedies do hit us, and they do.
I'm not minimizing this. After our blessed lord on the cross said, my god, my god, why have you abandoned me? Let's not forget that. Let's not hesitate. We do feel that way that god has abandoned us.
All the the the 20 Psalm to the contrary notwithstanding. This is a fact. But even when the going is the roughest, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. There's never total darkness. There is some light.
There is something that we have to be grateful for. Always. Always. And I say, if there's nothing else, it's the fact we have existence. We didn't bring ourselves into being.
The second thing then is to is to express gratitude. Express it. And I don't mean there's been a guy going around telling everybody you'll love them. Forget it. You've got you I don't think my father ever in his whole life ever said, I love you.
If he had said that, said, what's wrong with you? Been drinking too much? It's it's it's our whole being. It's how we do express ourselves and express our gratitude. There are all kinds of ways that but it's gotta be the real McCoy.
It's gotta be authentic. It can't be something that comes tripping me off the lips and the tongue. That's cheap. So as regards this very much neglected virtue of gratitude, two things, recognize reasons for having it and then express it from the bottom of your heart. And remember, actions speak louder than words.
Christ proved that on the cross. In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.