Returning from exile

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed

There’s something pitiable about the person who lives in exile. To be in a faraway place when your heart is back home can be a severe punishment and a source of discouragement. The closest many of us have been through this experience is when we were sent to our rooms by our parents as punishment or when we were separated from our families and loved ones by thousands of miles due to travel, studies or work. The feeling of homesickness is a clear symptom of someone in exile, but most of us are assured that the feeling will pass because reunion is within reach.

The people of Isaiah’s day, to whom the first reading is addressed, knew that feeling well. Theirs was the plight of the exile. They’re a long way from home, and they have “miles to go before they sleep.” But unlike many of us who are certain of a time when we will be able to return home and reunite with our loved ones, these people who lived in exile were living in the anxiety of an uncertain future. The way home seemed closed and all prospects of reunion appear to have disintegrated. The spectre of living and dying in a foreign land was very real.

For this reason, the prophecy in Isaiah 25 is to them an infinitely consoling song of liberation—an Old Testament Magnificat that anticipates real hope for a bright and glorious future. The hymn breaks into the text unexpectedly, celebrating the end of the humiliation that have befallen the Jews for so long. God is clearly on the move, having subdued the enemies of Israel and having promised to restore them to a place of peace and prominence once again. With God, even the worst exile, which is death, is only temporary. This prophecy celebrates the end of darkness and death for the covenant people.

“On this mountain,
the Lord of hosts will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich food.
On this mountain he will remove
the mourning veil covering all peoples,
and the shroud enwrapping all nations,
he will destroy Death for ever.
The Lord will wipe away
the tears from every cheek;
he will take away his people’s shame
everywhere on earth,
for the Lord has said so.”

The marvelous truth is that Israel as a nation will rise again from the dead.

As is often the case with Old Testament prophecies, God, the divine Author of scriptures, could see more than the earthly author. It is not difficult to capture glimpses of a greater event and miracle in this passage—the bodily resurrection that awaits all believers at the end of the age. In fact, when Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:54 that “death is swallowed up in victory,” he’s citing Isaiah 25:8. When John writes in Apocalypse 7:17 that “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes,” and again in 21:4 that God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more,” he’s surely alluding to the same prophecy. Isaiah’s original vision exceeds all expectations.

Whereas, the Jews looked to the fulfilment of this prophecy to take place “on this mountain” and saw Mount Zion, on which Jerusalem is built, as its fulfilment, they failed to recognise that the focus of the prophecy is not the “mountain” but the “Lord of Host” who prepares the banquet, destroys death and restores our communion with God. Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, is the fulfilment of that prophecy, as we see in today’s gospel passage. In the story of the widow of Nain who is grieving over the death of her son, the encounter with the Lord Jesus turns the grieving ceremony into a celebration of life and joy, it is He who removes the mourning veil from her, who wipes away her tears, who destroys death and finally restores her son to her. She did not have to ascend the mountain to experience the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy; the mountain, Jesus, had come to her.

On this day when we commemorate all the faithful departed whom we had lost over the years, we do so not with broken hearts nor in hopeless despair. Just as how our Lord commanded the dead son of the widow to rise up, it is our hope and prayer, that our Lord will command all the faithful departed who have died in His peace, to rise up and have a share in His glory won for us on the mountain where He was crucified.

We live as a people of hope because we believe that humanity’s exile to this sin-scarred planet of crime, cruelty, injustice, and death will one day come to an end. Like Israel of old, we may continue to fail and fall in many ways, we will continue to lose our loved ones to death and one day too, we will have to reckon and accept our own mortality, but God is still God, and we can be certain that He will keep His promises:

• He will prepare a feast for His people.

• He will destroy the corpse’s shroud that enfolds us all.

• He will swallow up death forever.

• He will wipe away the tears from our faces.

• And He will remove His people’s disgrace from all the earth.

In other words, death itself will be exiled forever, and the people of God will finally be home. And the authority for such a great hope is that the Lord Himself “has said so”.

Our duty is to continue to pray for the dead, for the souls in Purgatory, and we do this, not because they need our prayers but because this is what the Holy Spirit has taught us to do. It is a gift of God, to allow us to share in His work in bringing His people to perfection. Purgatory is where souls are prepared for heaven, it is where the work of God which begun in their lives would be completed. It is the “processing centre” where exiles are prepared for their final homecoming to heaven. God wills that we should share in this work through our prayers. And by praying for them, we are attesting to the truth, “life is changed, not ended” at death.

Sainthood is within our reach

Solemnity of All Saints

One of the most common complaints I get from well-meaning Catholics who wish to see the Catholic Church become more inclusive and tolerant, a “big tent” organisation that takes in all and welcomes all, is that the Church seems to be too overly demanding and the bar which she sets is so exceedingly high, only perfect saints would make the mark. Robert Hugh Benson, the Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism, sets out this dichotomy: “one-half the world considers the Church too holy for human life, and the other half, not holy enough. We may name these critics, respectively, the Pagan and the Puritan.”

Against the pagan who accuses the Catholic Church of being over excessively demanding and against the puritan who claims that we will never be good enough for God, the Church actually teaches that though all have received the universal call to holiness at baptism, all have the potential and the means to become saints through sacramental graces, we continue to acknowledge that we are sinners, striving and struggling with temptation and the entrapments of sin, and therefore, constantly in need of redemption.

A saint is not someone who has never sinned but someone who refuses to be defeated by sin, refuses to allow sin to have the last word or plays hapless victim, because he or she believes in the power of redemption by the One who died on the cross to atone for our sins and who even now leads us on the path heavenward. A Saint understands and accepts the power of grace that “love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8) and where “sin abounds grace abounds much more” (Romans 5:20).

Saints are made, not born. Although one’s discipleship must deepen during the course of a Christian’s life through a slow process of conversion and growth in sanctity, he or she must be a thoroughly converted Christian disciple before he or she can become a saint. Acknowledging that we are “works in progress” is never in contradiction of the fact that we are called to “perfection.” The error of our modern times is that so many seek to give excuses for our mediocrity by canonising it, by making mediocrity the new benchmark of all aspects of life. We forget that we are made to be saints, being “half-baked” just doesn’t cut it. The saints remind us that perfection in terms of holiness is possible and attainable, even though it may take a life time of surrendering to God’s grace as we progress in discipleship.

In life, we often look up to certain celebrities as our heroes, idols, hoping and aspiring to become more like them. For us as well as for the saints, there is one model par excellence – it is Christ. By honouring the saints and by desiring to become more like them, we are aspiring to imitate what they hold up to us for our emulation – Christ Himself. This is what the beatitudes present to us - an image of Christ who chose to be poor, to be meek, to share our sorrow, to be a peacemaker and to suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness. And if we wish to become more Christ-like, we must then imitate Him by living out the beatitudes.

For the one who protests that holiness is beyond his reach, that holiness is for losers who seek to deny their humanity, who thinks that sanctity means virtue signalling, who believes that he is an incorrigible sinner beyond repair or redemption, he is making one of these declarations:

That redemption is a fantasy, which also means that our Lord died in vain and His mission was a failure;

That one doesn’t wish to follow Christ, for this is what becoming a saint means - becoming more Christ-like.

That this life is all there is to it, that there is no destiny prepared by God beyond a life of sin and strife; a destiny beyond our imagining - eternal life within the light and love of the Most Holy Trinity.

Acknowledging our vocation to become saints is not living in denial of our fallen nature and propensity to sin. We all fail, sometimes grievously. But, that is no reason to lower the bar of expectation. We seek forgiveness and reconciliation, and try again. Lowering the bar of spiritual and moral expectation demeans the faith and demeans us. Catholics today are capable of spiritual and moral grandeur, and indeed want to be called to that greatness. That is what Vatican II meant by the "universal call to holiness," and that is what is available to all of us in the Church, who dispenses graces through the sacraments.

Sanctity is available. And sanctity is what will transform a loser into a winner, a victim into a conqueror, a sinner into a saint. As Leon Bloy, the French Catholic novelist, so famously wrote: "The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint."

He sees you

Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

As I grow older and as my vision grows dimmer, more things seem to fall off my field of vision. I’ve learnt to excuse myself for this for the sake of preserving my sanity and assuring myself that this is part of the natural process of aging. It does seem frustrating, especially to others because my lack of cognisance may suggest that I really don’t care.

Many of us suspect God is like that too - that He doesn’t see us because we are just too insignificant, which is to say that He doesn’t care. But I think today’s readings tell us who God really is. He’s not a God who loves from afar. He’s a God who cares about the details of our lives. Nothing is too small to present to Him. Nothing escapes His attention, His care, and His love. God is never too busy, He is never too big and important, He is never too foggy for being more ancient than the universe, to miss out on anything. The author of the Book of Wisdom acknowledges this: “In your sight, Lord, the whole world is like a grain of dust that tips the scales, like a drop of morning dew falling on the ground. Yet you are merciful to all, because you can do all things and overlook men’s sins so that they can repent.”

In comparison to its creator, the entire universe is a mere “grain of dust” or “a drop of morning dew,” yet nothing happens without the Lord’s knowledge. The reason for God’s vigilance is not brought on by His intention to police us and catch us at our weakest moment but because He loves us. The author of Wisdom confidently professes this: “since if you had hated something you would not have made it.” And yet the God who misses nothing, overlooks nothing, forgets nothing, is willing to overlook our sins in His mercy, should we repent.

This is what we see in the gospel. We have the familiar story of Zacchaeus and his conversion. In this, the final turning point in Luke's Gospel, we discover exactly what Jesus' mission on earth is - to seek and to save the lost. And we see it demonstrated beautifully in the life of a very extreme candidate, a hated chief tax collector. On account of his occupation and his collaboration with the Roman imperial forces, he was “a sinner” in the people’s estimation. What made Zacchaeus’s conversion more incredible was that he was also rich, given our Lord’s warning about the rich and how it would be almost impossible for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of heaven by their own effort.

Most people fail to recognise that the story of Zacchaeus has a parallel in the story of the blind man of Jericho, which precedes today’s passage. As with the blind man by the roadside, Zacchaeus is also disadvantaged by his physical short stature and therefore must first overcome this disability to get to see the Lord. Zacchaeus must suffer the humiliation of climbing a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of the Lord above the towering heads of the crowd. In both instances, the crowds posed an obstacle by keeping them from getting to the Lord. But in this case, the crowds posed no obstacle for the Lord. He misses nothing and sees everything. For the Lord, no one is lost in the crowd, nor is anyone reduced to a mere statistic.

Just like how our Lord ordered the crowd to bring the blind man to see Him, in today’s episode, the Lord commands Zacchaeus in this fashion: “Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I must stay at your house today.” For the first time in the gospel our Lord demands hospitality. Our Lord’s request for hospitality is matched by His description of Zacchaeus: “this too is a son of Abraham.” This description would make sense if we remember that Abraham was renowned for his warm hospitality, a hospitality that was extended even to divine visitors.

The interplay between Zacchaeus, Jesus, and the crowd revolved around one issue: the worth of the sinner. The crowd rejected the sinner. In fact, rejection would be an overstatement because one has to be consciously aware of something before you can choose to reject it. Zacchaeus’ fell below the crowds’ radar but it never disappeared from our Lord’s. No one, no matter how small, no matter how insignificant in the eyes of the world, would disappear from God’s radar. He sees everyone, He knows everyone and He personally loves everyone.

The crowds had no place for Zacchaeus in their society. He might as well be the Invisible Man. But the Lord saw beyond the reticence of the crowd and the bravado of the tax man. The shepherd was willing to leave the 99 in order to seek out the lost. He had come for the sick and the sinner, not the healthy or righteous. Zacchaeus had been denied hospitality by his own brethren. He had little value in the eyes of his fellowmen, but he was of great worth in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord seeks to include the excluded in His Kingdom.

Here is the irony of the Divine Comedy, an irony of cosmic proportions: Zacchaeus had gone up a tree seeking Jesus, but it was Jesus who came down from heaven to the level of sinners and the marginalised, to seek Zacchaeus. As Jesus declared at the very end of today’s passage, “for the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost.”

Today, let us heed the call of St Augustine who tells us, “Climb the tree on which Jesus hung for you, and you will see Jesus.” Today, we are invited to ascend the ‘Tree’, not the sycamore tree that Zacchaeus climbed. The sycamore tree reminds us of the Tree of Life, once denied to Adam and Eve when they fell into sin; the very Tree which now awaits us in the gardens of Paradise. It is the Tree on which our Saviour hung, the Cross, once barren and wintry but now burgeoning with new life, announcing a new springtime of the Resurrection. Our Lord climbed this tree, to open to us the way to return to the Father. The cross invites us to look at Jesus who looks back at us with those loving but piercing eyes, who sees our beauty despite the ugliness of sin, and who now invites us to see all things in Him, with Him and through Him. He is the light of the world, and in His light, we see light.

Even if we can’t face ourselves because of the shame we feel for our brokenness and sinfulness, even if we feel that no one sees us because of our unworthiness, we can be certain of this truth - God sees us, He knows us and He loves us. We name Him as did Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah, wife of Abraham: “El Roi” - “the God who sees me.” Nothing escapes the vision of God, not even when we have descended into the very depths of the abyss.

When God’s eyes gaze upon you, He sees the unique and precious child He created. He is right beside you in every step you take. God knows you right down to the number of hairs on your head. When God sees you, He sees Jesus who died for your sin. He sees you in the hard places. He sees you in the dark places. We are never left alone! God is faithful and is waiting to welcome you home and will accompany you even during hard and dark times, even when you can’t see what’s down the road or around the next bend.

Recovering the Sense of Sin

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

In a 1946 Radio Address, Pope Pius XII said this: "The greatest sin today is that men have lost the sense of sin.” Note that this claim was made 76 years ago, during a more innocent and religious time of our grandparents and great-grandparents. The Pope must have been prophetic. If that was true then, then how more so is this statement true today.

There has been no great moral awakening since the good pope uttered those words so that what was begun has found its completion in our age. The widespread loss of a sense of sin has led to a great spiritual malaise in which any semblance of shame has been lost and sins are demanded as rights. Abortion, the killing of innocent and defenceless babies in the womb, is today regarded as a fundamental right and its denial as a major sin. Sodomy and paedophilia, or the sexual attraction to children, are being normalised as different facets along a wide spectrum of sexual orientations which should be socially acceptable. Even members of the Catholic Church seem to have lost their way as well as their sense of sin. Communion lines grow longer, while Confession lines grow shorter and even public sinners are given Communion as a right.

The pride which blinds us to our own sins is represented by the Pharisee in today’s gospel and the solution to Pharisaism is the humility of the publican. The publican had no doubt he was a sinner. He saw the gravity of his sins and they overwhelmed him. There was no self-sufficiency in him. “A humble and contrite heart, thou, O God, will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

This humility, this acknowledgement of our utter neediness, is the heart of true repentance. In God’s order of justice, only those who accuse themselves of their sins and confess like common criminals can find forgiveness, just as the one with leprosy can only find healing when he runs to the nearest physician. It is only when we are condemned in our own eyes that we find pardon. The truth is, we are all desperately in need of God’s healing and forgiveness.

Notice that it was the Pharisee who denied sin in himself and left unredeemed, while it was the publican who acknowledged personal culpability in sin who left vindicated. But in today’s world with its upside-down perspective of values and skewed assessment of what is right and wrong, the admission or the reminder of sin is often labelled as being Pharisaical.

On this Sunday, which is World Mission Sunday, we are reminded that mission is the primary activity of the Church. We often hear that the mission of the Church is to preach the good news of salvation but let us not forget that one of her essential tasks is also to preach the bad news of sin. In fact, the Church has no mission if there is no sin, or at least if there is no sin to be forgiven. Salvation would be meaningless if there is nothing we are to be saved from. Just as the Father sent the Son into the world for the forgiveness of sins, so the Son sends the Apostles and their successors. To omit the reality of sin from the Gospel renders the Good News utterly senseless and salvation an empty concept.

This is the reason why we need to recover a sense of sin, not because the Church is busy in giving guilt trips to her followers but because she understands that the path to salvation can only happen when one humbly and honestly acknowledges one’s sinfulness and chooses to repent. That we can develop a healthy sense of sin is itself Good News because it frees us from not only rationalisation but also scrupulosity. Both of these ensnare us because they leave us closed to the reality of God’s mercy. They render His mercy toothless and mere platitude. What then would a healthy sense of sin consist in?

The first step would be to call a spade a spade, or in this context, to call sin - sin. We live in a politically correct world where words no longer hold their original meaning and are subject to slick reimagining to escape culpability and guilt. Sin is an offence against God, disobedience against His Holy sovereign will. Refusing to recognise this is as bad as a person who denies he is suffering from some terminal illness and thus refusing to take the remedy. This was the problem of the Pharisee. It was not just hubris which made him congratulate himself for his outstanding righteousness but also his refusal to acknowledge that he too was a sinner, like the publican and the rest of humanity, in need of redemption.

Only by recognising sin can we then take the next step - taking responsibility. The publican humbly confessed that he was a sinner because he understood that his sin was his own doing. There is no blaming of others, excusing oneself with rationalising, but simple and humble acknowledgment that we deserve just punishment for our sins. But the amazing surprise is that the moment we confess our guilt and take responsibility for our actions, we will be rewarded with God’s mercy rather than His wrath.

Lastly, a healthy sense of sin or a healthy conscience can only be cultivated through prayer, regular examination of conscience and frequenting the sacrament of penance. Failure to observe and cultivate these spiritual exercises will certainly lead to a lax conscience which is desensitised to sin. You wouldn’t even know what hit you even if sin looked like a 20-ton trailer on a head-on direct collision course with you. Making regular sacramental confession enables us to stay focus on doing what is pleasing to God and avoiding what displeases Him.

Unlike what many modern age pop psychologists would advocate, we don’t have to pretend to be good to make ourselves feel good. Ironically, it is when we acknowledge that we are bad but still loved by a wondrously good God, that we have the potential of becoming good, in fact sanctified and saintly. Servant of God John Bradburn, a candidate for canonisation who had worked among the lepers of Rhodesia, often proudly declared: “I am so useless, and clueless and un-illustrious … That makes me more truly confident in the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.” Saints were never individuals whose lives were impeccable, or were immune to sin and temptation, but they were certainly sinners who had humbly thrown themselves at the feet of God pleading His mercy, only to be rewarded with a clean slate and a new start in life. Sainthood is within reach because redemption is real and within the reach of every person, even the most hardened of sinners. As the old adage goes: every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Let’s embrace the spirit of the publican, and in our weakness and sinfulness, let us cry out to our Lord, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” For He did not come to heal the healthy, but the sick, and if we do not acknowledge our sin, we have no part with Him. As the Lord Himself said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Upholding in Prayer

Twenty Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Have you seen the banner on our parish Facebook page? It has the three of us priests extending our hands in a gesture which suggests one of several things: a sign of welcome, a position of prayer or perhaps a moment of collective narcissism, “hey! It’s us!” The other day, I made a request to our social communications team to have it taken down and replaced with the stain glass triptych of the Holy Family that you see behind me. Seeing ourselves displayed on the page does give off a certain bad odour of shameless self-aggrandisement. Last I checked, the banner is still up but with a difference - my face (in the centre) had been blotted out by the profile picture featuring our parish logo while my two confreres were spared. It does help when I’m the shortest among the three.

Today, we see a similar scene in the first reading - three persons standing side by side. As Joshua battles the Amalekites in the valley of Rephidim, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill with Moses. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites would prevail, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites surged and had the upper hand. When Moses’ hands grew tired, Aaron and Hur took a stone and put it under Moses and he sat on it and then Aaron and Hur held up Moses’ hands so Israel would prevail.

This poignant scene speaks volumes to me in a way that I have never realised before. I see myself, the weakest among the three being held up and supported by my two brother priests. Like Moses, I am charged with the responsibility to maintain a posture that should inspire confidence and lend strength to others, and yet I often seek to hide my weaknesses, my weariness in the same moment.

It sometimes feels like the weight of the world is pressing down on my arms raised in surrender and prayer. Often, I feel too tired to press on, even too tired to pray and the temptation to throw in the towel is simply too strong to overcome. That is until I realise how God sustains me through companions and collaborators. Fr Philip and Fr Bona are my Aaron and Hur, who walk together with me especially when my feet and hands have grown weary from walking and working. They recognise my needs and provide me with the support without being asked. Then, there are the leaders of this parish. They are the front liners, like Joshua in the battlefield, who have to face the many issues of family and community life in the first instance while I remain secure and safe on my proverbial hill, providing spiritual support and holding them up in prayer.

I started with this tale in the first reading because the story we find in the gospel is to be read with the story of Moses raising his hands. Both readings remind me that the one thing that can sustain me, that has sustained me, and I can be certain will continue to sustain me, is prayer. It is God’s invisible hands who actually hold up our fatigue laden hands and feet and continue to sustain us. Several important lessons emerge from these readings:

Let’s begin with the obvious, we need each other even though we may each be tasked with different responsibilities, just as Joshua who did the fighting needed Moses who did the praying who needed Aaron and Hur who did the supporting. During the process which began last year, our Holy Father has been reminding us that Synodality is the way we have to be Church - it is a recognition that no one is self-sufficient, no one can determine his one fate without reference to others, that we are in need of God and each other. Some battle on the frontlines by engaging with the necessary work of ministry, while others do battle in prayer giving support like Moses.

Secondly, our mission and our work are necessarily connected to prayer. Prayer is the heartbeat, the life blood and the breath of our apostolate work and mission. Without prayer, the Church’s mission cannot succeed, her battle with evil cannot be victorious. If the Church, and every single one of her members is to avoid being routed in the daily battles of life, all of us must pray, we must uphold each other in prayer, we must persist in prayer, storm heaven for assistance and grace, instead of just being lost in busyness and activism or drowning in despair.

Thirdly, we are in this for the long haul and we should be ready to persevere. Perseverance is needed not so much to change the mind of God. God already knows what we need long before we make our requests. So, why do we need to pray and pray unceasingly? Prayer isn’t about persuading God to do what we want; it is about inviting God to mould us in faith into what He wants for us. If the answers to our prayers came easily and quickly, where would the challenge be? Prayer is not meant to change the mind of God; it should change us. By persevering in prayer, our faith is nourished and deepened, our will is subverted so that we may conform ourselves more closely and intimately to the will of God. Persistent and consistent prayer teaches us fidelity and how to be faithful friends of God, and not just fair weathered ones.

Fourthly, the One whom we must turn to who will ultimately sustain us even when all our own personal resources seem drained and exhausted, is the One who also stretched out His hands on the cross. St Justin Martyr saw Moses’ prayer with arms extended as a prefiguration of our Lord on the cross. Unlike Moses who needed the assistance of Aaron and Hur to support his hands, our Lord’s hands are held up by His undying love, by His complete willingness to accept the suffering and humiliation of the cross. In Orthodox icons of the crucifixion, the Lord’s hands are stretched out on the cross lifted heavenward in prayer but the nails which pierce His hands are invisible. The icon wishes to depict that the Lord is crucified on His own volition and that He is being held up by His own power rather than by the power of His executors. It is love which nails Him to the cross and it is through love by which He intercedes for us. As long as the Lord continues to uphold us in battle, we will prevail.

The final picture painted by this story is a profound truth of God. Our Lord, lifted up upon the hill, is the One who gives us the strength to stand strong and fight with a courage beyond comprehension. Our Lord remains steadfast and unwavering but the real question is, “when the Son of Man comes, will He find any faith on earth?” He will never give up on us. Let us not give up on Him.

Gratitude unlocks the door to prayer

Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Today’s gospel brings us the story of how ten lepers were healed by the Lord but only one returned to express his gratitude. What distinguished this particular leper from the other nine was not merely the fact that he alone had returned to thank the Lord for the healing he had received. What was remarkable about this man, a detail which St Luke himself noted and did not overlook, is that this man was a Samaritan. This is what makes the story of the ten lepers so significant. Nine are Jewish and one is a Samaritan. Once again, a Samaritan proves to be the protagonist and model of virtue at the skilful hands of St Luke the Evangelist.

You would have heard by now that Samaritans and Jews didn’t really get along although they shared a common heritage and many religious customs. For the Jews, the only thing worse than being a leper was being a Samaritan. The Jews viewed Samaritans as an aberration of their own race and religion - as Tolkien’s hideous orcs were said to have descended from the beautiful race of elves. The former regarded the latter as renegades, having compromised their observance of the religion and cavorting with the enemy including inter-marrying with them, thus sullying their bloodlines.

From the impurity of their bloodline to competing claims over the centre of worship to disputes over the canon of scriptures, Samaritans were as similar and yet as distant from the Jews. The fact that our Lord uses a Samaritan in His Parable of the Good Samaritan and depicts him as a paragon of mercy and charity, in contrast to the Jewish priest and Levite, was a real slap in the face of the Jews. Likewise, the fact that only the Samaritan leper returned to show his gratitude in today’s passage would have equally provoked the ire of the Jews, and would have thrown a spotlight on their sense of entitlement and ingratitude.

The Lord tells all the men to go to Jerusalem and show themselves to the priest, but the Samaritan knows he’s not supposed to go to the temple. Being a Samaritan, it would have been strange for him to follow our Lord’s instructions to show himself to the Jewish priest. Samaritans had their own priests who offered sacrifices on Mt Gerizim instead of Jerusalem. And in any event, a Samaritan would have been turned away from the inner courtyards of the Temple before he was allowed to enter and defile it, with or without his leprosy.

Perhaps, this could be the real reason the Samaritan turned back. When all ten men were healed, the Samaritan was the only one who returned to say “thank you” to the Lord. Not being able to fulfil the prescript of the Law as far as Jews were concerned and not being able to even complete the instructions the Lord had given to Him and to the others, he alone turned back. But he did so not out of frustration or resentment (for not being a Jew), but out of gratitude and appreciation of what the Lord had done for him. As a Samaritan, he could never imagine how he too could be a beneficiary of this miracle. His heart overflowed with gratitude.

This Samaritan leper shows us that at the heart of our Christian faith must be this constant attitude of gratitude and thanksgiving, the urge to praise God must surge and coarse through our veins, and be the very air which we breath and words which we speak. At every Mass, during the Preface, a profound dialogue occurs between the congregants and the priest. The priest says, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,” to which the congregation replies, “It is right and just.” The priest then continues: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.”

Thanksgiving is right and fittingly given to God. Ultimately, nothing we have or experienced is earned or merited; it all comes from God. It can be easy in our society to take what we have for granted: a warm, sunny day; the food we eat; the security of a job, the people we love. We fail to see the wonder in these because they seem so ordinary. Yet offering thanks and praise to God reminds us that God is the primary mover.

Unfortunately, such gratitude is in short supply these days. We live in a culture of entitled persons. One sure sign that we treat everything as an entitlement instead of a blessing —is a lack of gratitude. Ingratitude exposes an attitude of entitlement. How often do we acknowledge God’s graces? How often do we say thank-you to Him and others? In fact, we are more likely to complain when those privileges are withdrawn. The man who seldom comes for Mass, even on a Sunday, and even less frequent for confession, may well throw a royal tantrum when he hears that the Church has suspended both during the pandemic. “How dare the bishop do this?” (Or when the live-streaming feed is down)

This is the painful truth - Entitlement keeps us from praying because true prayer is the overflow of gratitude and desperation. Since entitlement strangles gratitude and ignores need, it leads to the death of prayer.

Ironically, one way God wakes us up to our ingratitude is through difficulties and suffering. Difficulties and suffering often lead to renewed prayer in a Christian’s life because they expose our needs. Wondering if you’ll have a roof over your head tonight and a job at the end of the year, tends to chase away feelings of entitlement. Worried over the future of our country and the world in the aftermath of this pandemic, if there is a future to speak about, makes us start thinking that we aren’t that special after all - everyone is in this - young and old, rich and poor, from New York to Paris. God will bring difficulty into our lives so that we will see our need and pray.

But we do not have to wait until difficulties come, to deal with entitlement. When we spray gratitude on the weeds of entitlement, they shrivel up and die. Not only does gratitude kill entitlement, but it also nourishes the soul, supplying nutrients necessary to see prayer blossom and grow. Gratitude to God leads to intercession for others.

If gratitude is one of the keys that unlocks the door of prayer, then we must get serious about gratitude. Instead of ranting and complaining about all the things which you feel are amiss in your family, office, school or in the church, count your blessings in heartfelt gratitude, instead of making a list of your woes.

The more serious you are about gratitude, the more likely you’ll become consistent in prayer. And instead of feeling grumpy, depressed or entitled, turn to the Lord like the Samaritan who threw himself at the Lord’s feet in adoration and thanksgiving. Our Lord desired the lepers to return to Him to give thanks, not because He had need of their thanks but because He desired to give them an even greater gift: the gift of faith. “Your faith has saved you.” Faith is the source of our salvation; giving thanks cultivates the gift of faith. It is the gift of faith so necessary for salvation which we receive in offering our thanks to God.