Grateful heart

Sunday, October 13, 2019
28th Sunday
in Ordinary Time
First Reading: 2 K 5:14-17
Second Reading:
2 Tim 2:8-13
Gospel Reading:
Lk 17:11-19
On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was passing along the border between Samaria and Galilee, and as he entered a village, ten lepers came to meet him. Keeping their distance, they called to him, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” Then Jesus said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Now, as they went their way, they found they were cured. One of them, as soon as he saw he was cleansed, turned back praising God in a loud voice, and throwing himself on his face before Jesus, he gave him thanks. This man was a Samaritan.
Then Jesus said, “Were not all ten healed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God but this alien?” And Jesus said to him, “Stand up and go your way; your faith has saved you.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Gratitude is more pleasing to the Lord if expressed promptly. Consider how Jesus appreciated the way one leper wasted no time in returning to give thanks after he realized he was cured. It is important that gratitude is done real time. When thanksgiving is put in abeyance, it can ferment to indifference. With the passing of time it can even evolve into a scheme of manipulation to extract more from the benefactor.
Urgency is vital to the preservation of gratitude’s genuineness. St. Ambrose expressed the same idea when he said: “There is no duty more urgent than
giving thanks”.
Delayed gratitude may even be a badge of pride. A proud person has to do a lot of thinking before actually giving thanks. He thinks that receiving favors from others is a matter of right. The more people do a good turn to a proud person, the more that proud person bloats in megalomaniac ego-tripping in the belief that people derive pleasure from paying tribute to his greatness.
“Gratitude is the memory of the heart”, wrote Jean Baptiste Massieu. We disagree. If gratitude is just one of the heart’s productions, it could be construed as partaking of the unpredictability of feelings. But gratitude is not an unstable feeling of the heart but an enduring disposition cultivated by the intellect. If there is any logic to how languages evolve, the similarity in sound of ‘think’ and ‘thank’ (‘denke’ and ‘danke’ in German) points to something common to both. It is really hard for one to thank if he does not think of what others have done to him.
Gratitude is the function of the intellect, not the memory of the heart. It is the spontaneity of the mind heavy with an inventory of favors from well-meaning people. Timeliness brings out the best in gratitude.
— (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.