[Reliquary of the blood-stained altar cloth in the Cathedral of Orvieto, Italy, when the host bleed. I took this photo when I was in Italy in August, 2007. Now that I have found, albeit a backwards way, of uploading my pictures to this blog, I will include more of them.]
At the end of St. John’s Gospel, he writes that he has recorded only a sample of the words and miracles of Jesus, for the entire world could not contain all the books necessary to record all that Jesus did and said. Since this is true, we need to reflect on why each of the evangelists chose to include the particular encounters, parables, and miracles that they did for their Gospels. Why, of all the miraculous healings that Jesus performed, did St. Luke choose to include the healing of the ten lepers that we heard in today’s Gospel? I think it can be summed up by this one question that Jesus asks, “Where are the other nine?”
Jesus wants, in this Gospel account, to teach us the beauty of gratitude. Jesus did not have low self-esteem and needed people to thank Him in order to feel good about Himself. As the Son of God, Jesus had no need for our praise and thanksgiving. No, the reason that Jesus values gratitude so much is because it is valuable for us, for the health of our souls.
First of all, gratitude keeps us grounded in the TRUTH. We need to be grounded in the truth in order to keep our ongoing relationship with God healthy. Not only is being ungrateful to God unjust, but it is an illusion. We do not create ourselves! The simple fact is that EVERYTHING we have is a gift from God: every beat of our heart, every breath we take, every talent we have, all of our hopes and dreams, our very life. As a simple matter of justice we need to give God His due and be thankful for all these gifts, but more than that, we constantly need God’s grace to persevere in doing what is right and good.
Secondly, gratitude is an anti-dote to sin. As we all know, the root of all evil is PRIDE. Sin turns us in on ourselves. As Satan said to Adam and Eve in the Garden, “You will be like gods.” Sin leads to self-centeredness, self-indulgence, and self-absorption. Gratitude, on the other hand, opens us up to God and our neighbor. A thankful heart build bridges and unites communities.
Because of the great value that Jesus placed on gratitude He left us a perfect expression of gratitude to give life to our souls. It is the Eucharist. The very word Eucharist comes from the Greek word that means “thanksgiving”. The Eucharist is the perfect expression of this gratitude that gives life and health to our souls. It keeps us grounded in the Truth, that God loves us so much that He gave us His Only Son to be our Savior, so that we can turn away from our sinful pride and live as children of God.
I am certain that all of us here could share with each other instances of just how good our Good God has been in our lives. Times when maybe He has strengthened us through a crisis or illness. Brought healing to the brokenness in our lives. Gave us the most astonishing graces that brought joy to our lives. So, look around you; “Where are the other nine?”
So with all the examples of just how good God is in our lives, why isn’t this church filled with people expressing their gratitude to God in this celebration of the Eucharist? In the 1950s over 70% of baptized Catholics went to Mass every Sunday; today, less than 25% of baptized Catholics attend Mass weekly. In Western Europe the numbers are even worse; some estimates indicate that only 10% of the Catholics attend Sunday Mass, so quite literally we can ask, “Where are the other nine?”
Oh, we can blame the usual suspects for the decline in Mass attendance: boring homilies, insipid music, a lose of sacredness in the liturgy, the liturgy is boring and old-fashion, not liking some of the Church’s teachings, being too busy with activities, etc. I think that one of the main underlining causes is a loss of a sense of obligation. In our culture freedom, in the sense of being able to do whatever I want, is worshipped, so being told that we have an obligation to go to Mass does not play well. The very word obligation has suffered the same fate as the word faithfulness during the time of the Prophet Jeremiah who wrote, “Faithfulness has disappeared: the word itself is banished from their speech” (Jer. 7:28).
However, obligation is a truly noble and profoundly human concept. The dictionary defines obligation as “something by which a person is bound to do certain things and which arises out of a sense of duty; the act of binding oneself by a promise.” Isn’t it good to have a sense of duty, and to bind oneself to one’s promises? In fact, obligation makes all kinds of human transactions possible: promises, contracts, verbal and written agreements. Without a sense of obligation, human life would simply be unbearable.
We need to have this same sense of obligation in our covenant relationship with God. I am not referring to a heavy-handed, guilt-inducing sense of obligation. Rather we need to view obligation as a positive, life-affirming form of Christian discipleship.
First, participation in Mass is a matter of justice, of showing our gratitude to God for all the blessings in our lives. I fear that too many of us do not really take the time to count our blessings. This can lead to a sense of pessimism; only seeing the negative in life. We need to see Jesus who is present in all aspects and circumstances in our lives so that we can accept the grace that He offers us. One of the reasons that the Third Commandment tells us “to keep holy the Sabbath Day” is to honor God for all that He has given us, and to recognize our need for Him in our lives. While we do need to develop a personal relationship with God, throughout Sacred Scripture God has made it clear that He wants us to worship Him as part of a community. We cannot live as Christians just by ourselves. To miss Sunday Mass deliberately is a mortal sin, unless we have a serious reason, like we cannot attend because of a serious illness, we are not able to get to a church (not because we are too busy with other things, but because of weather or there was no church available).
Secondly, we need to recognize our desire. We all have a spiritual hunger because we can see that everything in this world is finite yet our hearts have a capacity for infinite love, infinite truth, infinite beauty. At Mass we encounter this Infinite Goodness, Infinite Love, Infinite Truth, and Infinite Beauty when we encounter God. At Mass we are nourished by this Infinite God by hearing His holy word in the Scriptures, and are feed by the very Body and Blood of the Lord in the Eucharist. This gives us the grace and help we need to live the Christian life.
The Second Vatican Council called the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist the heart of the Church, and the “source and summit” of all the Church’s activity. We need to foster within our selves, our families, and our neighbors a healthy sense of obligation to express our gratitude to God. “Where are the other nine?” Each of us need to ask ourselves that question, and see what we can do to invite some of those “nine” back to Mass, back to the Eucharist, so that they can have life, life to the full.
