28 Sunday in Ordinary Time - C

Kgs 5:14-17, 2 Tm 2:8-13, Lk 17:11-19

The Sunday today is all about THANKSGIVING.

In today’s Sunday Reflection I quoted a story I found in one book. I will read it a little bit later. The other, similar story you can find at the beginning of Matthew Kelly’s book “Rediscovering Catholicism”. Read it please.

It is interesting that today’s Gospel as well as tomorrow’s feast of THANKSGIVING are very close, they have the similar meaning and it is all about gratitude, about thanksgiving.

Let us read the short story from the Sunday Reflection:

Gratitude ---

Once upon a time there was a man who was struck down in his early thirties when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He had a wife and young children and a promising career.

Suddenly all of that was swept away from him. He could barely talk or walk. He was in constant agony. His friends and his family, except for his wife and mother, avoided him. The doctors shook their head. It was too bad. He was a nice man and deserved longer life. But there was nothing they could do. Doctors were just helpless.

At last he went to a very famous doctor who offered to operate on him, even though everyone else said the tumor was inoperable. The doctor warned the patient and his wife that he could very well die during the operation, though he (the doctor) was pretty sure that he would survive and return to health. They decided that they should take the risk.

After nine hours of surgery, the doctor came into the waiting room, grinned at the man’s wife and said, “Got it!” The man recovered and went on to a happy and successful life.

· Twenty years later the surgeon died. We should go to the funeral, the patient’s wife said. I’d like to, her husband replied. But it’s on the weekend and I have an important golf tournament. His wife was flabbergasted … The doctor was the only one who 20 years ago save his life, and now …?

Interesting? Isn’t it?

Do you know what the literal meaning of the word EUCHARIST is? “Ευχαριστία” - in Greek- means exactly Thanksgiving.

How often we just find any possible excuses not to go and participate in this what we know is THANKSGIVING? O, I would like to, but I have so many other things to do, I am so busy, I am so tired, I have such a hard time, my life is so demanding … etc., and so on …

Jesus in today’s Gospel is telling about the same situation:

Jesus said in reply,

"Ten were cleansed, were they not?

Where are the other nine?

Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?"

Then he said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you."

We receive so much; we are constantly receiving so much from God … and we have no time for THANKSGIVING?

Interesting? Isn’t it?