The Gospel today is calling us to live our lives with a spirit of profound gratitude for all the blessings that we have received: to be aware of those blessings, to recognize them, to be grateful for them, and to allow that spirit of gratitude to settle into hearts and give us a real deep inner peace.  Gratitude really is the most powerful and effective method for fostering peace of heart, and it’s the reasonable and appropriate response to all of the good things we have received in our lives. 

Our Lord has healed ten men of leprosy, at their direct request.  Nine of them are very happy to have gotten what they wanted and go about their business. Only one comes back to thank our Lord and to give honor to God for the healing he had received.  It is so easy to treat God like an ATM: drive to the spiritual bank, punch in whatever secret code of prayers I think will get God’s attention, obtain whatever I think I need, and then drive off without a second thought.  We all are tempted to treat God that way some times.  But Our Lord Jesus Christ is a real person, with whom we have a real relationship.  He’s not an ATM, or a spiritual magician or some kind of existential illusionist whose services we employ.  He’s a real person, whom we love and whom we want to be with and to spend time with and to have as a real central part of our lives.  But we’re so used to purchasing and consuming goods and services in every context of life, it’s always a temptation for us to reduce God and Faith to this kind of transactional relationship.  But gratitude heals that and protects us from that.  When our fundamental posture in life is to be facing our blessings, seeing them, looking at then, acknowledging them, rejoicing in them, giving thanks to God for them, if that’s where we live, if that’s our default headspace, then it’s very difficult for all those other negative things to work their way in: we’re protected from that kind of ungrateful entitlement that the nine lepers in the Gospel show. 

We’re also protected from envy, those times when we feel threatened and annoyed by what others might have, in terms of their material success, and even more subtly when we’re irritated by other people’s friendships and relationships and the joys of their lives.  Gratitude protects us from all that.  It helps us to treat Christ like the person that he is, like one who wants to help us, who can help us, who will help us; and to respond with love and gratitude, not entitlement and indifference.  We don’t take what we want and run; we get even closer to him when he does great things for us.  Having this fundamental posture of gratitude will also protect our human relationships from becoming too transactional.  We can take what we want and run, in our human friendships and relationships as well.  But that’s not what we want; that’s not who we want to be.  We can forget to express our gratitude, especially to those who are closest to us: your best friend, your spouse, your parents, your children, your closest collaborators at work.  Really try to foster gratitude in your heart for what others do for you, especially those you see every day.  And don’t forget to express that gratitude.  Those two words, “Thank you”, can transform your relationships and can transform your own heart. 

It’s good to think about these things and have them in mind, but sometimes we just don’t have it in us.  Sometimes we can’t stir up that spirit of gratitude; we can’t find it, or the difficulties of life are just too overwhelming right now.  The Lord wants to help.  This spirit of gratitude in our hearts can be a gift and a grace, and sometimes, because of where we are in life, that’s what it has to be.  So we have to pray for it.  “Lord, give me a grateful heart.  Give me a deep awareness and gratitude for my many blessings, from you and from others in my life.”  Of course, the greatest source of gratitude available to us, is the Most Holy Eucharist: even that word, Eucharist, in Greek, means “Thanksgiving.”  And so, as we prepare ourselves for that sacred moment of Holy Communion with our Lord, we invite Thanksgiving Itself, Thanksgiving Himself, into our very hearts and lives.  “In all circumstances, give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”  It is his will, it is his desire, and he will help us with all we need to make it the defining reality of our lives.  And so we return to him, we look to him, and we thank him.  We say "Thank you" most of all, to Our Lord.