In Thanksgiving

“As he was entering a village, ten persons with leprosy met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, ‘Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!’ And when he saw them, he said, ‘Go show yourselves to the priests.’ As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.

He was a Samaritan. Jesus said in reply, ‘Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?’ Then he said to him, ‘Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.’” (Luke 17:12-19)

Today’s gospel is perfect for today, Thanksgiving. So often we forget to give thanks for all the blessings that God has bestowed on us. Only one of the ten people healed of their leprosy bothered to go back and thank Jesus for healing him. Why did the others not go with him? Did they feel they were too busy? Did they feel a sense of entitlement and thus there was no need to give thanks to God?

Today is set aside for our nation to give thanks to God. In 1789, George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation begins with the following words, “Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour.”  We are one nation under God but this no longer seems to be the case. Our faith is one of our greatest gifts but so many people refuse to accept this gift. If we don’t believe in God how can we be grateful? Everything we have and everything we are is from our heavenly Father. His hand is involved in everything good. If we don’t believe in God then we make gods of so many things. Our pride guides our steps and is seen as a strength instead of the root of all sin. We become selfish and our hearts become hard. We don’t feel that we need to help those in need and often look down on them. Our world becomes a dark place.

In order to break free of this we need to be grateful. We need to recognize all the blessings we receive each and every day. If just once a day we stop and list two things that we are thankful for, our stony hearts will begin to be replaced with love. This one simple gesture will lead us to be more aware of our blessings and also recognize those in need. We begin to share our gifts and our hearts grow even more. This is the cycle that we want to encourage and allow to flourish. We become like the Samaritan in today’s gospel; glorifying God in a loud voice, falling to our knees and giving thanks for the healing and blessings in our own life.