Presence/Absence of Gratitude (2021-11-25, Thanksgiving Day)

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 Homily –  Nov.  25, 2021  /  USA Thanksgiving

● ●  Luke 17:11-19 ●

[__00-a_]     Sometimes there is a delay. When is a gift due? Could it be delayed?

The due date for the gifts on The Giving Tree? I think it's December 12. Just you could make a few could make a note of that. But that's this is not what I'm talking about exactly.

When is a gift “due”?  What is the due date for a gift to be delivered? In the case of a wedding – bride and groom -  there is a 1-year / 365 day rule. It’s considered acceptable to send a gift up to 1 year (12 months) after the wedding.

And, just as there can be a time lag or time interval between the event and the giving of the gift, there can also be a time lag between receiving the gift and acknowledging the gift or expressing gratitude.

A few years ago, I sent a gift to friend for his wedding sevral a few months after their wedding – using the 1 year rule and waited several more months for a thank you which may have been lost in the mail. I am not sure what happened.

We use the expression – did you “get it” to refer to the delivery of an Amazon package or any physical object being delivered.

We also the expression – did you “get it” to refer to something “spiritual” or intellectual – in other words, did you understand it.

Did you get it? You don’t get it, PADRE !

          In my case, I did not “get” the thank you…and was concerned that the gift was not received.

          Perhaps, I was also wondered whether it was appreciated whether they “got it”.    Yes, they got it, they liked it, all good.

[__00-b_]       What is a meaningful expression of gratitude and appreciation to you?  This can be rather personal, in terms of what you will “get”.

I read this as an example in a magazine. Imagine you are going back to work – perhaps later today or tomorrow, the next day or Monday..  And, your return, this particular day is the 10^th anniversary of your employment. You worked for this particular organization for 10 years.

And, right there on your desk is an GIFT CARD and acknowledgement that you have been worked there for 10 years.

But the gift card arrives even without a thank you note, nothing personal, no one’s name is on it except yours and the mention of 10 years. And, the gift card is there.  How would you feel about this?

Well, you might say to me, it depends on how much money is on the gift card! I would know based on the monetary value of the gift card how much I am appreciated.

Sometimes, that’s how we look at thank you’s or at gifts. It depends on much it is.

Or, would you roll your eyes and wonder – with this gift card am I being CONGRATULATED ..or EVALUATED .. or TERMINATED, after 10 years?

You might wonder – am I really appreciated? Do I matter?

That is, we expect GRATITUDE to come to us, to be expressed in certain meaningful ways.

We are taught to express gratitude in meaningful ways.

From the time we are small from the time we are young, our parents and grandparents and grownups and teachers have reminded us to say thank you, they tell us to say thank you. And as we grow up, I think we all realize that we need the help of others. We need the help of others in order to survive.

It is practically obligatory in any management training or leadership class, to say “make sure you thank the team….”

So, if you are a new employee or new pastors or priests in the Archdiocese of Newark or assigned to Our Lady of Lourdes, West Orange or any other parish, to remind them to affirm and thank the people on the team to thank the parish staff to thank the parish council thank the finance Council think that the lectors every lector, every Usher every Eucharistic minister, every altar server, every choir member, every musician, every staff member,  every volunteer who teaches our children in religious Education to prepare for the sacraments of 1^st Penance, 1^st Communion and Confirmation.

And, I am grateful to everyone I have just forgotten to mention. Thank you’s are risky – in public – because we might leave someone out.

But, we do the best we can. And, we make lists. This time of year is a time of many lists. But, it’s also a time to be personal direct simply to acknowledge those in our presence, those we know.

I am grateful to those who help Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.

I am called to do that. And I am called to do it in an authentic way really to do it, you know, from the heart.

Did you get my thank you, not just materially but spiritually and intellectually?  

The Archbishop years, many years ago gave us this example. He said, You know, I always tell the priests, this, do your love your people? [IN A DEEP VOICE] He said, Do you love your people? And then the 2^nd question was, do they know that you love them? That’ an important 2^nd question, not just for priests, but for all of us. To our family, I love my family, does my family know that? I love them. Or if you say I love my spouse, does my spouse know that I love her or I love him. I love my children. Or for a child, I love my mother I love my father does my mother and father know how much I love them. And that I try to do what they say that's another way we express love that we we try to follow what other people need, we try to serve them.

[EXAMPLE]

One day many years ago, when I was a first out of college at one of my first jobs. The head of our department walked by me this was kind of a big company, the head of our department walked by me. And there were like hundreds of people in our department and he said hello to me my name, he greeted me by name, my co-worker sensing that I was really pleased to get noticed told me

Hey, you James Ferry, he's only doing that because they told him to do that at manager school or business school or leadership training. So I just use this as an example to show that gratitude is certainly something we value. And we also have finely tuned spidey senses to detect when gratitude is either false or lacking or inauthentic or absent.

Looking back on that example, I believed and still believed this superior of mine was being authentic and he remembered my name. We like to be called by name. I am not trying to put pressure on you to remember more names or people you don’t yet know but to call by name and reach to those you can. It makes a difference. Just saying someone’s name is an act of appreciation.

I think people “get it”

Perhaps we notice gratitude more when it is absent than when it is present. Because we take it for granted that it's going to be present the Gospels is today is about both the absence and the presence of gratitude.

BORDER / IN BETWEEN

We might say that Jesus is travelling into his border territory. Judas is traveling the border territory between friendly Galilee and unfriendly scenario. He's traveling in the border territory between the safety of people who don't have leprosy and the unsafe, the unsafety of people who have leprosy, and that's where he meets the 10 lepers. And we are also existing in a border territory in our own lives of border territory, between living a life of gratitude and gratefulness, or a life of ingratitude and ungratefulness. Where do you exist on that spectrum? While I tell myself that being grateful was better than being ungrateful.

 Am I really able to live this in a meaningful way? For example, am I grateful, only when things are going my way.  Am I grateful for knowledge of my or awareness of my faults of my deficiencies of ways in which I can grow of my leprosy?  Of my need to repent of my sins.

If a light bulb goes “on”, and I remember where I put my headphones or where I placed my keys, that’s nice. I am grateful.

If a light bulb goes “on” and I remember what I did wrong, I might not be immediately or instinctively grateful.

 I can also dwell in a border region in a demilitarized zone between gratitude and ingratitude. Maybe I don't want to go too far into gratitude or too far into ingratitude. Maybe I don't want to express too much thankfulness because this might invite me to accept what I don't want to accept.

For example. Do I dare be grateful for illness that befalls me or a loved one?  (It is the illness of leprosy that causes these 10 lepers to encounter Jesus. Would they have known and grown otherwise?)

Do I dare be grateful for the sacrifices and compassion we can learn during a time of illness or trial? Do I dare be grateful for the life of someone who has died very young? Too soon, in my estimation? Do I dare be grateful for the time I did have with this person who was taken from me so young?

Do I dare be grateful for a relationship has ended against may will, against my choice? As Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane Father, let this cup pass from me but not my will but thine be done. Jesus was grateful even for his suffering, and acknowledging his gratitude up until the end. But the 1 leper who returned is eager to show his reverence his respect for Christ as a savior.

It's not entirely clear why the other 9 do not return in reverence or respect. The official biblical scholar explanation of this is that the one leper represents the truly humble Christian disciple, who's not necessarily going to be an insider, with all the with all advanced knowledge of Jewish faith and the commandments, but simply someone who recognizes Jesus  for who he is, “Son of David / King  / Savior”

The other nine are similar to the larger community that Jesus is surrounded by some of whom, who feel entitled to their salvation, and who are not grateful because they feel entitled, and they have better things to do – in their own estimation.

They “other 9 lepers” know that Jewish law, but they feel entitled to their salvation, and they have better things to do in their own estimation. And sometimes we might have an entitlement mentality that can mitigate that can hinder us from living a life of gratitude. Do we put rivalry ahead of respect for example.

In this example, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and he's on his way to Jerusalem to give up his life for us. The Samaritan leper who returned recognizes this he recognizes that – from the outset – and that’s why he and the others are calling out “Son of David have mercy on us”

So we give thanks for Jesus's own body and blood, His life, death and resurrection in our lives this day, and always.   [__fin_]