Spirituality of the Readings
Gratitude
Sunday’s Scripture narrates two leprosy cures and two reactions to them.
Once, when I presided at a baptism, it was so easy to see the difference between my own old flesh and the soft clean skin of the infant girl who received the sacrament.
What would your reaction be if you were made fresh as a baby, after your skin had been that of a leper? You or I would probably open a website to sell soft-skin!
In the Gospel, Jesus heals ten lepers. He sends them off, saying, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” They do, but on the way they find out that they are already cleansed! And, maybe the point of the scripture is that only one former leper—and it is a Samaritan—has eyes to see what this healing means.
Extolling God in a loud voice, this one comes back to Jesus. He drops to the ground giving thanks. The other nine? They must have been glad they had won the sweepstakes and had not thought about who had done the cure.
Jesus offers a soul-cure as well as a bodily one. Too bad those others missed it!
Second, in the First Reading, a leper, Naaman—also a Samaritan—is healed by Elisha the prophet. Naaman is told to plunge into the Jordan river seven times. He carries out this strange routine just as instructed. The result?
His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean of his leprosy.
Naaman rushed back to Elisha to gave copious thanks. He declared that there was no other god on earth but Israel’s God! He offered a gift in thanksgiving. This was a very healthy and normal reaction: when a person is loved so much, their heart goes out to the giver and, without thinking, their soul wants to give gifts in return.
Strangely, Elisha refused the gift. We are not given an explicit reason, but probably he did not want earthly rewards for doing God’s work. In response to the refusal, Naaman the leper made a dramatic pronouncement.
If you will not accept,
please let me, your servant,
have two mule-loads of earth,
for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice
to any other god except to the Lord.
Mules and all, he will use Israeli earth to show his gratitude. It will be a sacrifice to the God of Israel, the God you and I worship.
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola are based on this same response of gratitude. Especially in an exercise called the “Contemplation to Obtain God’s love,” people on retreat realize (over time) how deeply they are being loved. Their great desire is to give back to the one doing the loving, to give in return.
Notice that this implies an adult relationship, not a child’s.
An infant is filled with need after need and tells you all about them. The nine cured lepers who did not say thanks might have been like that. But as maturity grows in a person he or she wants to give back instead of only receiving.
Yes, even to give back to God.
God has been seeking a mutual love relationship with each of us from the beginning of our lives. Have you ever sensed this? Have you felt gratitude? Have you ever taken time out to return love?
Could you take some time out this week?
John Foley, SJ
**From Saint Louis University