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.