Lk.17:11-19
Do we really ‘believe’ when we say, we believe in God?
Today’s gospel passage invites us to grow into two important aspects of our faith journey. The two aspects are faith and gratitude. In today’s gospel we see the ten lepers encountering Jesus. They beg for healing and Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to priests that they would be restored to the daily rhythm of the community. Let us not forget that they weren’t healed at that moment, yet, they did what Jesus asked of them; they went ahead, and they were healed only on the way. We need to appreciate their deep faith in Jesus because believing in Jesus’ words they set out for their journey to the temple. Every miracle or faith journey is a test. We fail very often because our faith is shallow. We all are familiar with this short story: A village was under severe famine and the parish priest exhorted the people to pray for rain and organized a special prayer service to have a good shower. At the end of the service it was raining cats and dogs but only a little girl had brought an umbrella. Do we really ‘believe’ when we believe in God?
How you conclude your day?
The second aspect of the gospel invites us to reflect about our sentiments of gratitude towards God and others. I would like to quote another familiar short story: The place is heaven. There are different departments and angels are busy managing all these departments. In one department all the angels are extremely busy. It is the department that receives the intercessory prayers from earth. The prayer requests are always so high in number that it is the most occupied sector of heaven. Whereas, the least occupied sector was the department that deals with acknowledgement of the graces received. The angels here received an acknowledgement once a while and other than that they were jobless. Though this story is purely imaginary, it invites us to reflect on our sense of gratitude. In the second part of the gospel story, out of ten lepers, only one came back to Jesus and that too, a Samaritan. One who is considered an outcast by the Jews comes back and thanks God for the healing he received. The question that Jesus poses is very relevant: ‘where are the other nine’?
When I attended the annual retreat, the confessor told me to spend some time in front of the Blessed Sacrament and thank the Lord. As I started to do this I realized that the blessings I received from the Lord are innumerable, but I could not thank Him for all the blessings I have received. I have taken God’s blessings and love for granted. It can happen to all of us that when we are in dire need of some grace, we storm the heaven with our prayers but once we receive the grace, it is likely that we tend to forget to thank God just like the other nine lepers who received the blessing of a lifetime and a new life. Unfortunately they forgot the giver of blessing in their happiness… our thanks do not add to the glory of God but it help us to deepen our relationship with God and to become a witness of his love. Let us count our blessings and thank God always like the leper who returned to Jesus with sentiments of gratitude. As we conclude each day let our prayer be: ‘Thank you Lord!’