28th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Anthony of Padua/Our Lady of the Rosary
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Anthony of Padua/Our Lady of the Rosary
Here’s the
surest way to ruin your life: never say “thank you.” Live as if
you are entitled to everything you have, everything you receive. Live
as if you are responsible for your successes, your moments of
greatness (large or small). Live as if you are self-sufficient,
independent, in need of no help, in need of no one else. Clench you
fist when a hand is offered. Close your heart when a hand reaches
out. Recoil in horror when someone suggests that you could use
assistance. Believe that you can do it all by yourself. When you fail
there is no one else to blame. When you succeed there is no one else
to credit. And when you die, you die alone. Never say “thank you”
and watch your days unravel behind you like an ugly scarf snagged on
a barbed-wire fence. A life of ingratitude is a life without grace,
without gifts and it is a life unworthy of holiness. It is better to
be a leper willing to ask God for healing than a well man who
cannot/will not come to God with thanksgiving. Therefore, “in all
circumstances, give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in
Christ Jesus.”
Paul writes
to Timothy that he, Paul, is a criminal for the gospel, a man put in
chains for preaching the Good News to Jews and Gentiles alike. And
though he is suffering in chains for the sake of Christ and Christ’s
body, “the word of God is not chained.” We can add here: “…and
the word of God will never be chained.” Though courts,
kings, governors, and states may strive to whip the Word with
judicial rulings or bury it in paper prisons or poison it with the
deadliest medicines, the Word will not be whipped, buried, or
poisoned. In fact, Paul, noting the persistence of the Word for him,
says, that because the word is not chained, “I bear with everything
for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the
salvation that is in Christ Jesus…” The Word endures, carries on,
lives always. And for this, we must give thanks. You must be the one
healed leper in ten who returns to give God thanks, or Christ will
wonder about you, “Where are the other nine?”
Before
asking how gratitude works for us spiritually, let’s take a moment
to explore the possible reasons for being ungrateful. Why do we
sometimes fail to give God thanks? First, we may not
understand the “giftedness” or “givenness” of our lives, that
is, we may not understand the fundamental animating principle of
human life. My life, your life is a gift, meaning that that we
exist at all is a present from God. God did not need us at the
beginning of all thing. He does not need us now. And will never need
us. Reality’s creation from nothing was a gratuitous, singular
event, a wholly unnecessary one-time occurrence. The on-going
presence of Something rather than Nothing is gratuitous as well. That
we are still here is a gift. Second, the psychological
motivations we need to accomplish anything often rely on the notion
that we achieve our successes and that we fail in our failures. In
other words, it seems that in order for us to do anything good at all
we must believe that anything we do well results from personal talent
and hard work. Why give thanks to someone not directly involved in
the work of my success? Of course, this denies the first principle of
creation: everything I am and everything I have is a gift from God.
My talent, my drive to work hard, my need to succeed—all are gifts.
Third, so delighted are we in our successes we often need to
claim total credit in order to feel worthy of the success. If I am to
succeed again, I have to come to the conclusion that I am solely
responsible for that success. To do anything less is to risk a future
failure. Finally, since the first bite of the apple in the
garden we have been tempted to believe that we can become god w/o
God. One god has no need to thank another god for anything. Our
declaration of independence from the engines of divine perfection
means that we think we are capable of saving ourselves. All we need
for salvation is determination, the right doctrines, sufficient work,
and a heart cold enough to reject any outside help offered—human or
divine. We fail to give God thanks out of ignorance, pride, a cold
heart, and vanity.
Why should
we give God thanks? Given what we already know about our
creation—that we were created gratuitously—we can see that
acknowledging our existence is first and foremost a matter of
justice: we owe God our gratitude. Our thanks is due. Our thanks to
God is also a matter of acknowledging the most basic truth of our
lives: we are creatures created by a Creator. We are not random
collections of chemical and electrical processes. We are not genetic
productions accidentally generated by ideal cosmic and climatic
conditions. We are beloved creatures, loved by our Creator. And as
creatures loved first by God, we love back and give thanks for that
love. The spiritual benefit, that is, the advantage that accrues to
us when we are grateful to God is an increase in humility, an
increase in our appreciation of our givenness, our total dependence
on God as our Creator and Sustainer. Humility is the measure we use
to determine the degree to which we are radically aware of our
dependence on God. Your humility means that you know you are a gift
given for no other reason than to love and be loved.
Here then is
the surest way to ruin your life: fail daily to give thanks to God.
Get up in the morning and go to bed at night as if you are entitled
to everything you have, as if you were owed everything you have
received. Get up in the morning and go to bed at night as if you
alone achieved all of your successes, as if you orchestrated all your
moments of greatness. Go day to day through your life utterly alone,
in need of no one, in need of nothing but your own ingenuity and hard
work. Grit your teeth when help is offered and say, “No, thank
you.” Lock up your heart when a hand reaches out and say, “No
thanks.” Shrink back in disgust at yourself and everyone around you
when you fall and refuse help. Know in your ungrateful heart that you
can do it all by yourself.
Or, you can
be trustworthy. You can be grateful and flourish in blessing. You can
be the one healed leper who returns to thanks to God. You can be
Naaman, who is healed in the Jordan, his flesh like the flesh of a
little child. And you will be the one to hear Christ say, “Stand up
and go; your faith has saved you.” Our Lord has revealed his saving
power to the nations. Whatever you do, do not be among the nine
ungrateful hearts who think that their healing is an accident. There
is nothing accidental about the Cross, or Christ’s death for us on
the Cross. He died on purpose, with a purpose. For us, he died
knowingly, freely. And because of his love for us, we are free. Give
thanks to God and make your life, this life right now, a living
sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving!
