13th Sunday after Pentecost 3.9.06 Giving thanks
There is a story of a man who was on his deathbed, and when prompted to ask God’s forgiveness. The man snapped, ‘God! What did I ever do to Him?’
The man was suffering from self-pity and bitterness. In his mind it was God who should be apologizing to him. It was God who had allowed this sickness and was depriving the man of life.
Many have a similar attitude to Almighty God. They focus on the negative in their lives, and think of God in terms of blame. Why does God allow this or that to happen? Why did He not prevent it?
This is the beginning of hell. The whole essence of hell is ingratitude. A permanent grudge against God, for getting it wrong, for doing it wrong. I never asked to be created; I don’t like the world I am in; I should have better treatment etc etc etc.
In hell are the bitter. And the indifferent. People who could not care less. The sort of people who don’t see any need for ‘going to church’. Has God saved me? I didn’t know I needed saving. These people are in the beginning of hell, the place for the ungrateful, the unheeding, the couldn’t-care-lessers.
When all the time we should be in awe at how good God is to us and how lucky we are to be alive. The story of the ten lepers calls us to a true evaluation of our good fortune.
Knowing we need saving is the key. The nine lepers were closed to anything beyond their physical condition. The one leper knew beyond his physical healing. His gratitude opened up his soul to the deeper question of his whole relationship with God. So the nine stayed at the physical (non-spiritual) state, the beginning of hell. And the one leper was on his way to heaven.
Knowing we need saving. Grasping firstly how much trouble we are in because of our sins, and then grasping how lucky we are to be freed from sin and made sharers in the life of grace.
Many people do not grasp either; we must grasp both.
The ‘leprosy’ is the disfigurement of sin; being cleansed is our forgiveness.
It is the difference between heaven and hell, between eternal life filled with joy and gratitude, and eternal death filled with bitterness and indifference.
We are playing for the highest stakes. We need help from heaven to appreciate what we must do.
It is so easy to be buried in just the physical and material world around us. I am grateful for lunch because I am hungry and I can feel the hunger being satisfied. But forgiveness of sin? Not so easy to feel, especially if we have allowed our consciences to be blunted.
We need heavenly aid. We need grace. And we have it – right here in the Mass.
The Mass is amongst other things an act of Thanksgiving. Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro… Dignum et justum est… Vere dignum et iustum est…
We offer the sacrifice of the Divine Victim in the hope of receiving mercy and salvation. At the same time as we do that we are giving thanks for past mercy received, for future mercy anticipated, and for the whole gracious disposition of God by which He is merciful.
The phrases ‘I can never thank you enough’ or ‘I’m eternally grateful’ take on literal truth in this case. An eternal blessing needs eternal gratitude.
The cherubim, seraphim, powers and virtues, angels and archangels lead us in this great act of thanksgiving.
We may not feel grateful at the personal level but we know we ought to be. No matter, taking part in this act (of the Mass) will make us grateful. We are swept up into a higher world, and we learn to feel at a deeper level.
Ungrateful brats we might have started out, but we are transformed into loving, faithful children. For all eternity.
