Gratitude is a virtue that comes natural to us, Filipinos. We have been born into a culture that deeply values every gift received which in turn obliges us to return the favor in whatever form. Thus, our word for gratitude is utang na loob, utang kabubot-on, or utang kabalaslan. When practiced properly and sincerely, this virtue can only enrich our heart and deepen our relationships.
Unfortunately, however, today’s culture of entitlement greatly challenges this virtue and threatens it towards extinction. Many people, especially the young, think that they deserve everything in life. They make demands and claims that everything is their right. They forget that everything is a gift. That “all is grace.” St. Paul asks his Christians, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1Cor 4:7)
That is why Pope Francis often reminds parents to teach their children to say the three most important words: please, sorry and thank you.
Today’s readings present two men who receive a favor (a miracle, no less) from God and return to give him thanks. In the first reading, Naaman finally heeds the words of the prophet Elisha and washes himself in the river Jordan. Finding himself cured of his leprosy, he returns to the prophet to offer him gifts of gratitude and to ask his permission “to have two mule-loads of earth, for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except to the Lord.” Gratitude is the recognition of the gift which in turn leads to the recognition of the giver. And since every gift comes from God, gratitude leads to God.
Likewise, in the gospel, the Samaritan leper obeys Jesus and goes to show himself to the priests. On his way, he is cured of his disease. He immediately returns to Jesus to give thanks. Jesus then asks him, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?” What follows gives us an insight to the true value of gratitude – faith which saves. Jesus tells the Samaritan, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”
The Samaritan does not receive only the gift of physical healing. Gratitude opens him to the greater gift of faith, and with it, an inner, complete and radical healing which is salvation. “Your faith has saved you.”
Pope Benedict has a beautiful comment on this. “Those who, like the healed Samaritan, know how to say ‘thank you’, show that they do not consider everything as their due but as a gift that comes ultimately from God, even when it arrives through men and women or through nature. Faith thus entails the opening of the person to the Lord’s grace; it means recognizing that everything is a gift, everything is grace. What a treasure is hidden in two small words: ‘thank you’!”
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, that would be enough.” I find this insight of Meister Eckhart incalculably consoling, particularly for me, who at my age has yet to learn how to pray. Often when I feel frustrated for not being able to “see” or “hear” God, or connect to him in prayer, I simply say, “Thank you, Lord.” Then, I suddenly find myself reciting an endless litany of thank you’s, for life truly abounds with God’s blessings.
Indeed, when one feel surrounded by so much love, he cannot but be joyful, for joy is simply an overflow of a grateful heart. Isaak Walton is right in saying that “God has two dwellings – one in heaven and the other in a thankful heart”.