28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Fr. Simham)
I remember a story I read on the internet. It is about a man who dies and goes to heaven. And St Peter takes him on a tour round his office. In the first room he sees a flurry of angels answering e-mails, faxes, letters, and telephones. They are all very busy. St. Peter says to the man, “This is our receiving department. All the prayer requests that are made come into heaven go through here.” Next, St. Peter takes him to a second room where he saw a great company of angels running about wrapping boxes, stuffing envelopes, sealing containers. St Peter said, “This is our distribution department, where we answer all the prayers.” Next, St. Peter takes the man into a small little room with one angel sitting at a desk doing nothing. You know what department that is? St. Peter said, “This is our ‘Thank You’ department.”
It may be a cooked up story, but it tells us an important truth; the lack of gratitude on the part of man and woman for all what we received from God. We, human beings by nature, take things and people for granted. If it is specially those who are dear to us, we take no notice of all what they do for us. Is it not true that husband takes his wife and all what she does for granted? All the household work she does; to keep the house clean, to give the meals on time, sending the children to school on time, and so on and so forth. Nothing is appreciated and thanked for. One day if she falls sick and doesn’t do all this domestic work, then you understand how difficult it is. In the same way wives take the husbands for granted. Children take the parents for granted. Once in a year a card or a gift on father’s or mother’s day; that is it.
Similarly in our day today life, we take for granted the man who delivers the news paper in the morning, the man who delivers the post, the man who cleans our streets, the driver who drives you safely, and the list can be endless. We all need them, yet we fail to acknowledge that. Above all when it comes to God, when it comes to giving thanks to God for the number of blessings we receive from him every day, we are terrible. We are so insensitive. But through the readings today God is asking us to be grateful for greater or even smaller things we receive.
In the first reading, we see Namaan the leper being grateful for the healing he received from the God of Israel. He bows down at his feet and worships him. And he also promises to worship this living God. And in the gospel, one out of ten of those lepers healed, when he comes back to give thanks to God, he is commended by Jesus and the other nine who took the favour for granted were found wanting. “Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they?” Not only here, in many other places in the Bible we are asked to be grateful for what we received from God. St.Paul writing to Timothy says, ‘“In all circumstances, give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 2:13). And the psalmist says, “bless the Lord, O my Soul, forget not any of his blessings.’ Psalm 103:2.
And we as Catholics have the privilege of giving thanks to God everyday and every week when we gather together to celebrate the Eucharist. In fact the very word “Eucharist” means “Thanksgiving”. Here in the Eucharist we offer to him bread and wine, the fruits of the earth and work of human hands as thanksgiving sacrifice for all what we received from God, especially the forgiveness of sins. He, in turn, turns the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ and gives it back to us as food for the soul. And at the end thank the Lord for this spiritual banquet. This is what Eucharist is all about. It is one great act of thanksgiving.
Every Sunday when we come to celebrate the Eucharist, let us be aware of this truth. Let us come to him with the grateful hearts as the Samaritan did in the Gospel today and offer him our “thanks and homage” for all what we received from him last week and go out with new strength and assurance to face the week ahead.
Fr. Showreelu Simham