Giving thanks….
This week’s Gospel narrates the story of the curing of ten people suffering from Leprosy. The story culminates with one returning to Jesus to give thanks for the gift of healing. He ‘threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him,’ we are told. Where are the other nine? Jesus asks. “It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.”
This story emphasises the importance of giving thanks for what we have received in the Lord. And giving thanks seems to be constitutive of what it is to be a Christian. After all the central celebration of the Christian community is the Eucharist. And the Eucharist itself means ‘giving thanks’. So many of the prayers of the Eucharist begin with giving thanks for what God has done in the world. This is followed by asking God to do again what God has done in the past: transform us and save us.
Training ourselves in the art of giving thanks can also prepare us to celebrate the Eucharist in a deeper way.
Have you ever heard people talking after a funeral as they reflect on the things they have heard about the deceased? Often they will say, ‘I didn’t know that she had done all those things’ or ‘I didn’t know just how generous a person he was’. We hear things in a Eulogy that give us a deeper appreciation of the one who has gone. Actually the word Eulogy means ‘to give thanks’ and to praise the person who has died. Eulogies are not biography’s or chronologies of life but are meant to be words of thanks and praise. It is a shame that it sometimes takes for a person to die before those who love them can sing their praises and give them thanks for the good things they have done in their lives.
I was talking to a couple recently who were reflecting on looking after their grandchildren. At the end of the day they sit around the table and ask each one to say something for which they are thankful from the day that has just finished. Each of them can be thankful for something whether it be a meal, a friend, a game, a spring flower or a hug from mum or dad. Training ourselves in being grateful and saying thanks can be transforming.
Saying thank you takes us out of selves. It moves us from being self-centred to being sensitive to others and the world around us. Saying thank you can build up our relationships and friendships. It can assist us in appreciating the diversity of gifts, talents and contributions of those around us. Saying thank you can ‘humanise’ us a little more. It reminds us that we are not self-sufficient but interdependent. We can learn that we are accountable and responsible to each other as fellow human beings on the journey of life.
My parents always reminded us when we left the house to ‘remember to say please and thank you’.
Saying thank you is not just good manners. It is a deeply humanising thing and a particularly Christian act that can bring us closer to the God of creation and to one another.
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Angela Dupuche says:
Thank you for this reminder Brendan