The theme for the readings on this Sunday, of course, is Thanksgiving, giving thanks,
saying thank you to those who do good to us.
We have Naaman in the first reading, Naaman, the Syrian leper,
who came back to say thank you to Elisha, the man of God, the prophet,
who told him to go wash seven times in the Jordan River,
and he came back cleansed from his leprosy.
And this Syrian general, a very important man, very powerful man,
comes back to say thank you.
He didn't have to. He got healed.
He could have just gone home and just rejoiced in his,
in the gift that he was given.
And that's unfortunately what we do a lot of times when we receive things.
We just get caught up in what we received and forget about the giver and the benefactor
and say thank you and be very, very thankful.
We have the ten lepers in the gospel here where nine of them didn't go back and say thank you.
Is that representative of all of us, all of humanity?
Are we all that?
Are we all that ungrateful that only one, ten percent would say thank you?
Probably not, I'm sure.
But they probably went a long distance.
It would have been very inconvenient for them to go back and say thank you.
Maybe they thought if they ran into Jesus again at a later time, they'd say thank you, maybe.
But this one made this effort to go back and say thank you to Jesus.
And that's what thank you takes.
It takes an effort.
It takes a thoughtfulness and consideration of the benefactor to go and saying thank you.
And this is true in our relationship with our brothers and sisters, with our parents, with our friends,
with those who do good to us.
We need to have this spirit of thanks to them.
And that really, really beautifies our relationships and really makes us rich and beautiful relationships
based on that.
And we need to have this spirit of thankfulness and love and thankfulness and gratitude and giving and thankfulness.
And it's a give and take.
You know, you give and I say thank you.
I give and you say thank you.
And that nourishes our friendship and love for among one another.
And of course, this is the number one or one of the major things we need to do in our prayer relationship with God is to be full of thankfulness and to dedicate ourselves.
And thankfulness, as St. Paul says, dedicate ourselves and thankfulness.
God's always giving to us.
And the more we ask, the more he gives, the more we seek, the more we find.
And the more we have reason to say thank you.
God is always giving us a stream of gifts.
And his gifts are less the less we ask, the less grateful we are.
That's true.
But God is still always wanting to give.
And he always does still give, maybe in less measure if we're ungrateful.
But he still is giving and wants and he gives with the hope that we will come back to him and and serve him better and obey him better and seek our salvation more strongly.
The spirit of thankfulness we need.
And this takes a certain humility.
It takes a humility to say, you know, I don't deserve this.
And yet the less we are, the more we are conscious of our ungratefulness.
Our our unworthiness, the more grateful we are and we are nothing.
We are sinners and we are very unworthy of the good that God gives to us.
And so we should be overflowing with thankfulness to God.
And that's what the humble do.
The humble are conscious of their unworthiness or their unimportance.
And when they are given things, they are very, very grateful.
And it's the proud who are not grateful.
The proud say, I deserve this.
The proud say, oh, if you give me something, you want something in return.
You have some ulterior motive.
You know, that's what the proud say.
I had it coming to me.
And, you know, so we all have a little bit of pride in us or maybe a lot.
And that makes us ungrateful when people give to us.
You know, Our Lady of Fatima, when the children were.
They were arrested and they missed their appointed apparition date with Our Lady.
And they came came out and they were going home.
They were released and they started seeing signs that Our Lady was going to appear.
And it was I think it was Lucia and Francisco were ready and they saw the signs.
But Jacinta was back at home.
So they ran or I think Francisco ran to get Jacinta.
And she came back and Our Lady had waited for her.
And when she came back and they ran for this, Our Lady thanked them.
Our Lady thanked the children for coming to to to meet her.
And that's that's the humility of our heavenly mother, that she would thank these children for coming to to be with her and to to.
So, you know, we we we need to have that humility, that humility, that strong humility that will make us very, very grateful.
And.
Gratitude nourishes love, gratitude, nourishes love, and it really feeds feeds love and nourishes friendship without it.
We have this kind of barren barrenness in our society, in our families.
And there's a cycle that that can will develop one way or another.
You you give and you give and you don't get thanked and you're less likely to give in the future.
And the.
Uh.
Uh.
The other person is is looks at you as a as a on giving person and they don't give.
And there's this cycle of indifference, this cycle of lack of charity, lack of giving, and it has to be broken.
And the other cycle can be in place, put in place to if we if people don't give, then you give and then there will be some that are grateful and they will give back and you have this given and taken the more you give.
The more people will be grateful and the more they will give back, the more they will be full of charity and love for the benefactors and they'll see this example and they will set it themselves and they will give to.
So this cycle of giving and cycle of Thanksgiving is what we need to have in our families in our hearts with our brothers and sisters and certainly with with God.
It's a cycle with God to the more we ask, the more he gives.
And the more we should be thankful and the more our love grows for God.
And so this is, you know, as Saint John of the Cross said, where there is no love, put love and you will find love.
Same is true with thankfulness, where there is no giving, put giving, and there will be thankful thankfulness and there will be that that given thing given take.
And this beauty is a beauty in this kind of relationship, kind of giving and thankfulness, a beauty that should always be there.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
well so let us be overflowing with thankfulness the spirit of thankfulness
in our prayer to God which takes thoughtfulness thoughtfulness and spirit
of sacrifice spirit of giving and imitating the example of Jesus and
consciousness to of our weakness and our tendency to be selfish tendency to be
ungrateful we need to overcome that by being very giving being very thankful
being very charitable and so let us set that example for our brothers and
sisters
you