By Fr. Roy Cimagala
THIS is the lesson we can learn from that gospel episode where Christ cured 10 lepers but only one of the them came back to Christ to thank him. (cfr. Lk 17,11-19) We should never forget to thank God, first of all, and whoever else is involved in some happy event in our life.
And even in our sad moments, we still have reason to thank God, since we know that he takes care of everything, especially on those occasions when we find ourselves helpless.
We have to realize that to be thankful to God for all his blessings to us, including especially his mercy, and to everyone, is really for our own benefit rather than for any good we can give to them.
God does not need anything from us. What he wants is that we learn to be with him always since we are his children, created in his image and likeness. He wants to share his life with us. God loses nothing if we choose not to be with him. But without him, we are the ones who would lose everything.
A heart that is not thankful is an isolated heart. It’s a lonely heart that thinks it can live and do things simply by itself, in violation of our nature and what we actually feel deep in our hearts. It has no other way but to be unhappy.
A thankful heart will never be alone and sad. It recognizes the many blessings and good things that it continues to receive. And it knows where they come from, and also for what purpose they are given. It will always be happy.
To be grateful is a necessity for us. It does us a lot of good. It keeps alive the reality that we depend on God and others for everything. It strengthens our intimacy with him, and our awareness that whatever happens in our life, God is always in control.
Thus, we need to hone up our sense of gratitude. We need to be thankful because the most radical truth about us is that whatever we have is first of all something given to us by someone, something received, before we do anything about it. If only to be decent, the least thing we can do is to be grateful.
St. Paul briefly and clearly expressed this truth this way: “What have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor 4,7) And he continued: “And if you have received, why do you glory as if you have not received it?” pointing to us the danger if we fail to acknowledge this fundamental truth.
To be thankful is a necessity in our life. It is what puts us on the proper foundation, on the right track toward our true goal. It sustains and reinforces our relationship with everyone, from God down to the last creature on earth.
It always generates good atmosphere around, facilitates friendship and harmony. It builds up a sense of unity and belongingness among ourselves, tearing away whatever walls we may unwittingly erect due to our unavoidable differences and conflicts of views and opinions.
To take this necessity for granted or, worse, to be neglectful of it would plunge us into the road of self-centeredness, making us vulnerable to pride, vanity, envy, conceit and the like.
We start to build our own fantasy world or our own bubble of a reality, even to the extent of invincible confidence of our own righteousness. We start to distance ourselves from others, until we alienate them from us completely.
Let’s never, never forget to be thankful always!
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
