Among the first words that we teach our children are the words, “Thank you.”  I can remember hearing my mother…after someone had given me something or someone had said something nice to me as a child, my mother would say, “Now, what do you say?”  And I suspect that mothers are still saying that to their children.  At a very early age, we were taught the cause and effect of giving.  When someone gives us something, we automatically say “Thank you” because that is how we have been trained.

Today, in the Scriptures, we meet a man by the name of Naaman in the 2^nd Book of Kings (2Kgs 5:14-17) and we also meet the ten lepers in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 17:11-19) who were also cured of their leprosy.  It’s interesting to note that the words “thank you” and “gratitude” do not appear in those scriptural accounts.  You see, in Hebrew, there is no specific word for “thankfulness”.  In both the Old and the New Testament, when a person wished to show appreciation or gratitude or thankfulness, the verbs “to praise”, “to glorify” and “to bless”, were used.  In other words, they didn’t say “thank you”, but they praised the person who was the giver of the gift, or the person who said the nice thing, or the person who made the nice gesture.  They gave words of praise; they gave words of glorification; and they gave words of blessing.  And so, it wasn’t just a two-word response…it was quite involved.  When you praise someone, you glorify someone, you bless someone…you put so much of yourself and your own words into that response.  It’s a much fuller, much more colorful way of showing gratitude than simply saying, “Thank you”…and now we’ve even shortened that to simply say, “Thanks”.

In ancient Israel, gratitude was demonstrated by prayers that praised and glorified and blessed their God.  And that is why we gather here every morning, or each Sunday at church.  We come to say “thank you”…we come to give praise…to give glory…to give blessing to God.  And so, it isn’t something that we’re being forced to do…it’s not that mentality that “I must go to Mass or I will sin.”  The mentality today, at least in this parish is, “I’m going to church because I need to go…to thank God…to praise Him…to bless Him for the blessings in my life.  It is something I have to do…it’s not something I’m being forced to do.

Notice that when Naaman and the Samaritan leper (the one who returned) were healed, their response took the form of a proclamation of faith and a declaration of praise for God and for Jesus.  We, as disciples of Jesus Christ, and whose ancestors are Jewish, are also called to give praise, and honor and glory in thanksgiving to God for the blessings that we have received.  But just as we sometimes automatically say “thank you” to others without thinking about it, we can sometimes go through the motions and the rituals, and we can even move our lips in giving praise to God without really thinking about it.  Sometimes, when we come to worship or say a rosary, or say some prayers that are familiar to us, we say them so often and we say them so quickly at times that we really are not even conscious of the words that we’re saying.  We become so used to the Mass as it is and the style in which it’s celebrated that pretty soon, by the time we come back to Earth, it’s time for Communion.  We drift away, and I can understand…listening to me for a while, you begin to think about the shopping list and all the things you have to do before the end of the day….

In order to sincerely thank God for the many blessings in our life, we have to first recognize what those blessings are…which means, we have to stop and think about how God has blessed us.  That should be a normal part of our day…perhaps at mealtime…perhaps before retiring at night…to just recollect our thoughts.  How has God blessed us today?  We should keep those thoughts of appreciation uppermost in our mind…and they ought to be sincere. 

At the very beginning of Mass, at the Opening Prayer, I prayed that in silence we would pray for the grace of sincerity, because sincerity has to be behind the “thank you”.  Sincerity has to be behind the gratitude.  In order to sincerely thank God for the many blessings in our life, we have to first recognize what God has blessed us with.  For some of us, it’s far easier to simply list and to think about all the problems, and all the disappointments, and all the struggles, and all the things that we don’t have…rather than listing all the good things: the accomplishments, the blessings, the many gifts that we have been given.

You see, some of us view Life as a “glass half empty”, rather than a “glass half full.”  Those of us who look at Life as a “glass half empty” feel less grateful because we feel that somehow, Life has cheated us.  That’s our view of Life…concentrating on what’s owed to us, or what others have that we don’t have, or who was chosen over us.  We begin to concentrate on what we don’t have rather than on what we do have.  For those of us who look at Life as a “glass half full”, we’re just so grateful to have what we have.

Gratitude is a conscious and intentional perspective.  In other words, we choose to be grateful.  It is an act of the will.  Looking at our world and looking at our life in a positive way and a grateful way is something that we choose.  For men and women of faith, gratitude is an awareness that should be reflected in every moment of Life.  When we consider ourselves a grateful person, it’s because we demonstrate that gratefulness and appreciation all the time.

Like the one leper in today’s Gospel, we realize that we have been cured despite the problems that we face.  Is our life absolutely perfect?  No.  Is everything going the way we would like it to?  I doubt it.  Do we have everything that we would really like to have?  I don’t think so.  But the leper in today’s Gospel realized that he had been cured and despite the problems that we continue to face, we realize that our blessings outweigh our struggles…and we have reason to rejoice and to hope, despite the sadness and the anxiety that we have to cope with from time to time.  It is that sense of gratitude that transforms cynicism and despair into optimism and hope…and makes whatever we do, truly an experience of grace.

Thankfulness is not a one-time response for having received a favor or in acknowledging someone’s kind word to us.  Thankfulness is not a one-time response, but rather it’s an attitude of the soul, and it springs from the heart…and it senses that everything in Life is a gift.  Yes, even suffering, and failure, and unemployment, and financial crisis, and disappointments, and many of Life’s difficulties can be seen as blessings.  They are not something that we would necessarily hope for, but they can provide opportunities for grace that we would otherwise not have.

How many of us have had dark and painful moments in Life?  A lot of you have…I know you have…I’ve shared them with you.  Dark and painful moments in Life…and looking back on them now, some of you can see some goodness…some blessings that resulted from them.  Some of those moments continue to remain a mystery to us.  They will only become clear when we see God face to face.  When we come to the realization and the awareness that we are not the center of the Universe, but we are a part of a great “web of Life” that is inter-connected in infinite ways to experience God’s grace, then our life will dramatically change and our outlook on Life will dramatically change.  When we realize that all of Life’s experiences are inter-connected and a part of God’s plan, although some very mysterious…when we accept them as gifts from God, we begin to look at Life very, very differently.

We are here this morning, celebrating the Eucharist and giving praise and honor to God because we are a grateful people.  The very word “Eucharist” means “Thanksgiving”.  How fitting it is that at this sacred event, this morning, where sinners are healed and forgiven and fed, is also the most eloquent and purest form of praise that can be offered to God.  It doesn’t get any better than this in thanking God…in sharing in this Eucharist.

The rituals and rubrics may change, but the spirit of the liturgy remains constant and the praise and the glory and the blessing and the honoring of God in the celebration of the Eucharist remains the finest expression of sincere gratitude.  There is no greater prayer than the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is a genuine “Thanksgiving”.  Only if we ourselves become the Eucharist for the Life of the world…only if we are willing to be taken by Jesus and blessed by Him and broken with Him and fully given as He was, do we experience that sincere sense of gratitude.

Thanksgiving should remain the motive of our ethical behavior and the choices that we make in Life.  To live anything less than a morally upright Life is to live Life ungratefully and as a negative witness to the generosity of God.  If we choose to live a life that is anything less than morally upright, we are slapping God in the face and returning His gift unopened.  A thankful, Eucharistic heart lives each day in the awareness that all that we are…all that we become…and all that we are empowered to do must be acknowledged as a gift…God’s gift to us…leprous sinners.

Each time that we share the Eucharist…each time that we come together on a Sunday morning…we praise God…and we honor God…and we come to say, “Thank you”.

God love you and God bless you.