Turning Back (2025-10-12, Sunday 28th)

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 28^th Sunday, 2025-October-12   ●● 2 Kings 5:14-17  ●● Psalm 98  ●● 2 Timothy 2:8-13   ●● Luke 17:11-19  ●●

Turning Back to Give Thanks

This past week, on October 4, we celebrated the feast of St. Francis of Assisi.  We usually picture Francis smiling among birds and sunlight, a saint of peace and simplicity. But his conversion didn’t begin in a peaceful forest — it began in fear.

One day, as a young man riding through the countryside near Assisi, Francis encountered a man suffering from leprosy. The sight and the smell horrified him. His instinct was to turn away. He later wrote, “What had made me sick became the source of my spiritual consolation.”

That moment changed him. He dismounted his horse, approached the man, and embraced him. The one he had feared — the one he was, as we might say today, freaked out by — became for him the face of Christ.
That’s the moment gratitude entered his life — not for comfort or health, but for the grace of seeing God in the one he feared.
Francis was no longer freaking out; he was seeking out God in his neighbor.

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The Gospel Moment

In today’s Gospel, Jesus meets ten lepers who cry out from a distance,

“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”   He tells them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”
As they go, they are healed.

But only one — a Samaritan, a double outsider — stops, turns back, falls at Jesus’ feet, and gives thanks.
And Jesus asks the haunting question:

“Were not ten made clean? Where are the other nine?”

It’s not only a question for them. It’s a question for us.
After we’ve received the gift — the healing, the help, the answered prayer — do we turn back?
Or do we, like the nine, simply move on?

Pope Francis once said,

“The heart of a Christian is a grateful heart. Without gratitude, faith becomes cold and blind.”

Without gratitude, our relationship with God can turn into a transaction — I ask, He gives, and I move on.
But faith that remembers to give thanks becomes a relationship, not a deal.

 

The Humorous Truth

Maybe you’ve heard a version of this story.
A man is driving in New York City, late for an appointment, circling the block again and again. Finally, he prays out loud,

“Lord, if You help me find a parking space, I’ll start going to Mass again and volunteer at church!”

Just then, a space opens right in front of him. He pulls in quickly and says,

“Never mind, Lord — I found one myself!”

We laugh because we know ourselves in that story.
We bargain with God when we need something — and then forget the bargain when things go well.
It’s what psychologists call self-attribution — taking credit for what was really a gift.
Spiritually, it’s the illusion of self-sufficiency.

But when we remember that the parking space — or the healing — was never our doing, we rediscover joy.

Grace in Waiting

Sometimes, God’s greatest gift isn’t the answer, but the waiting itself.
I learned that lesson as a teenager sitting in a hospital emergency room waiting for a few stitches.
Across the corridor I noticed a classmate volunteering with the ambulance corps.
He saw me, came over, and sat down to talk. Nothing miraculous happened — just a friendly face in a tense place.
But it changed the room. It turned waiting into a moment of mercy.

The Catechism says:

“Every event and need can become an offering of thanksgiving.” (CCC 2638)

Even the waiting room. Even the unanswered prayer.

Gratitude at the Altar

That’s what we celebrate here — every Sunday, at this altar.
The very word Eucharist means thanksgiving.
Here, like the Samaritan, we turn back to Jesus to say:

“Thank You, Lord, for noticing me. Thank You for healing me. Thank You for your mercy.”

At baptism, we were brought to the font by others — parents, godparents, the Church.
We didn’t begin this life of grace alone, and we don’t live it alone.
Every sacrament is a communal act of gratitude, and the Eucharist makes the Church a people of thanksgiving.

As Pope Francis reminds us,

“Without gratitude, we are closed in on ourselves.”

And as Benedict XVI once wrote, true conversion begins when we “slough off the illusion of autonomy.”
Gratitude does exactly that. It opens us to the truth that I didn’t make myself. I didn’t heal myself. I didn’t even park myself.

Living Thanksgiving

So what might it mean this week to turn back and give thanks?

It could be as simple as saying grace before every meal — even when you’re eating alone.
Or thanking someone you usually take for granted.
Or when something good happens, pausing for just a moment and whispering,

“Thank You, Lord. I know this was You.”

Every act of gratitude is a small conversion — a turning of the heart back to God.

When St. Francis embraced the leper, he found joy.
When the Samaritan turned back, he found salvation.
And when we stop to thank God, even for a heartbeat, we find ourselves walking in their footsteps.

May we always be the one who turns back.
And may our whole lives become a living thank you to God —
grateful hearts that remember,
grateful hands that serve,
and grateful voices that praise.