Why WE Need Gratitude

          Today’s Gospel [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111225.cfm ] is a lesson in gratitude.

          Jesus heals ten lepers who seek to be cured.  He does so not by some grand gesture on the spot but as the Law prescribed in the Bible: he sends them to show themselves to the priests and, while en route, are made whole.  He could have healed them on the spot.  He didn’t.  He could also forgive our sins on the spot.  He doesn’t.  He sends us to the priests to be healed, “by the ministry of the Church.”  Gratitude means receiving the gift on the terms the giver gives it.

          But let’s ask ourselves a deeper question: why does Jesus even ask “where are the other nine” who did not come back to Him?  Jesus doesn’t need their “thank you.”  As one of the Prefaces for weekday Mass in Ordinary Time puts it: “you have no need of our praise.  Our desire to thank you is itself your gift.”

          No, the one who needs gratitude is us, not God.  Yes, God has a right to our gratitude.  But we need a sense and expression of gratitude because gratitude forces us out of ourselves.  It disabuses us of a sense of entitlement, of the “right” to something.  It expands us to acknowledge that everything we have – starting from our very lives and the very breath I’ve just taken – are all God’s gifts.  And gifts cannot be demanded.  They can only be received … with gratitude … by which we expand our world and focus beyond the end of our noses.