Thank you

This is my homily for today, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C.  The readings for today are here.

“One of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.”

“Thank you”.  Two words, so simple, and yet so hard for so many of us to say.  And how easily it may slip our mind to speak those two words or write them.  It’s almost as though we take for granted all the good things that have been given to us by others.

In today’s Gospel, only one of the ten healed lepers came back to thank Jesus. We’re left wondering the same thing Jesus did: where were the other nine?

But before I start being too judgmental about the nine, perhaps I should press the pause button and ask myself, “How thankful am I?  For example, speaking of healing: do I ever thank my doctors and nurses and therapists for doing the things that cure my illnesses and keep me healthy?”  I’m sorry to say, I may not thank them as much as I should.  I pay them – but we shouldn’t confuse paying with thanking.

My wife Therese and I did an experiment earlier this week that opened my eyes about living a life of gratitude.  I have to say, she is much more tuned into living a thankful life than I am.  She has done gratitude journaling.  I asked her how she picked up that spiritual habit: who was the spiritual master that taught her this?  I was expecting her to say, “Theresa of Avila”, or “John of the Cross”, or some other great spiritual saint.  And she didn’t disappoint:  she replied, “Oprah Winfrey”. 

Therese and I had this conversation at the end of the day, and she challenged me to think of a few things that had happened to me that day for which I should be thankful.  So, I mentally reviewed my day.  It had been a rather typical workday for me, which means that it was stressful and frustrating.  I found plenty of things to complain about, but I couldn’t come up with anything to be thankful for.  After a few minutes, I said, “Nope, I’ve got nothing.”

At that point, she did something which, I’ve noticed, she has done frequently throughout our marriage: she sighed, and said a quick silent prayer for patience.  Then she helpfully reminded me of a few things. She asked, “For example, did anyone unload the dishwasher tonight so you wouldn’t have to do it in the morning?”  “Oh, yeah,” I said, “You did.  Thank you.”.  Then she said, “Isn’t it nice to have clean clothes to put on every morning?”  “True,” I said, “Thank you for doing my laundry”. 

Soon, we were on a roll.  I was thankful to have such a good wife, and four wonderful children, a good job, and a roof over my head.    I was thankful to be able to be a deacon at St. Edna.  I was thankful to have my parents still living, and to be able to spend time with them.  I was thankful to be in such good health.  I was thankful to be able to work with so many wonderful volunteers and staff members on various ministries here at St. Edna.  After a few minutes of this, I started to realize how blessed I really am.  And I became filled with gratitude.

It turns out that the word “gratitude” comes from the same Latin root, gratus, from which the word “grace” derives.  The relationship between gratitude and grace isn’t just linguistic; there is a spiritual connection, too: when we live lives that are filled with giving thanks for the gifts God has given us, God bestows grace upon us.

It became clear to me, from that little exercise with Therese, that living a life of gratitude doesn’t come naturally to me.  Living a life of dissatisfaction and resentment comes much easier.  I realized that to be thankful requires some practice.  And I wonder, for how many of us, that’s the case. 

So: we’re going to do an in-class exercise.  In a moment, when I say, "Go," I want you to turn to someone who is here with you, or is in the church building here somewhere, and thank them for something.  It could be something really important, like, “Thank you for being my mom.”  Or “Thank you for being the love of my life”, or “Thank you for forgiving me when I did something to hurt you.”  Or it could be something fairly trivial, like, “Thank you for holding the door for me,” or “Thank you for bringing me a cup of coffee this morning.”  The list of things for which we can offer thanks is endless.  I know some of you are here by yourselves, so if you don’t know anyone else here this morning, I’m going to walk down the center aisle, and you can try to think of something to thank me for.  Are you ready?  Go.

(Assembly does the exercise.)

Ok – and now I’m going to thank you for working with me on this little experiment in gratitude.

I am going to close now by letting you in on a secret.  It’s not my own secret; I got it from someone else.  I’ve always found that it’s more fun to tell other people’s secrets than our own, don’t you agree?

This secret was suggested to me in a blog post by Fr. Michael Van Sloun.  He’s a priest of the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese.  Fr. Van Sloun’s secret is how to keep mass from getting too boring.  Have you ever thought to yourself, “Mass is boring”, or “I don’t get anything out of mass.”  Here is his secret: mass is not something to get stuff out of; it’s a thing to put something into.  And that thing which we are called to put into mass is … thanksgiving.  That’s the secret: for mass to mean a lot for us, for it to be spiritually fruitful for us, we should spend our time at mass thanking God.  I promise you that, if you spend time at mass each week, thinking of things for which to thank God - you could even come in each week with a short list in your head of things for which you want to thank him -  you will start to get a lot out of mass.  Coming to mass will become the highlight of your week.

You see, God has done incredible things for us.  Not only did he make us, and not only are his guardian angels watching over us and protecting us each and every day: not only that, but God’s son Jesus offered himself to save us.  He died for us.  And here’s what’s even more amazing about that: that sacrifice wasn’t just something that happened 2,000 years ago and then ended.  It’s still happening today, too.  That act of love, which saved us, and for which we owe Jesus our prayer of thanks, will be made present to us here in a few minutes when we celebrate the sacrament of the Eucharist.  Jesus will continue to save us. 

Did you know that “Eucharist” means “Giving thanks”?  It does.  So it turns out, it’s not really much of a secret at all; in fact, the very thing we’re supposed to do is the title of the celebration itself.

That’s the secret: to keep mass from being boring, and to get a lot of spiritual benefit from mass, spend time thanking God.  We just took a few minutes to thank one another, so our thanking muscles are all warmed up and stretched out and ready to go.  So now, as Jesus offers himself for us, let’s thank him.  Because he’s giving us the gift of himself.  He doesn’t have to.  We don’t deserve it.  But he does it anyway.  Because he loves us.  For that, let’s pour out our hearts in thanks to him.  Jesus, thank you.