This year we made November a special month of thanksgiving, thanking God for all those who have gone before us and who have impacted our lives, celebrating All Saints and All Souls Day. Then we thanked God for the many the living who, in quiet or profound ways, have accompanied, shaped, and helped us grow. Last week we thanked God for those persons who were God’s channels of grace: priests, religious, lay people who prepared us for or conferred on us the various sacraments and whose example of charity—even tough love—brought us to a closer relationship with Jesus Christ.
All these weeks of thanksgiving we have been filling out cards for specific persons. We will place these thanksgiving cards under the altar to offer them with the Holy Eucharist, the ultimate act of thanksgiving to God.
As we acknowledge Jesus Christ as our Lord and King, the Lord and King of all creation, let us thank him for his lordship over our lives. We think of the ten lepers who our Lord cured—are we not all sinners and therefore lepers, cleansed in the waters of baptism?
On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then said Jesus, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well” (Luke 17:11-19).
Let’s follow the Samaritan and return to give thanks to Jesus Christ and to our Heavenly Father for the love we have experienced in his family, the Church.
One of the concrete ways we thank God is to tithe, to thank God with the first 10 percent of the gifts we have received from the fruit of our labor and of our possessions. Those who tithe show their faith in God’s providence, acknowledging his lordship over us and all creation and believe that he will continue looking out for us. Our faith and gratitude tell our Lord that we will use all the gifts we receive from him for the good of our family and his.
Think of children. When a child—like the nine ungrateful lepers—sees his birthday or Christmas gifts as only for himself, to enjoy independently of his parents and siblings, he hurts the person who gifted the child with this item. It isolates the child from the giver and from the rest of the family. What joy parents experience to see a child share his gift—even if just a piece of candy—with a sibling or by giving the parents an opportunity to share it too. We do the same with our Lord when we generously share our income and gifts with the Church and with one another.
Please consider tithing—thanking God with a generous freewill offering. Perhaps you can tithe 10 percent of one week’s salary; perhaps 10 percent of one month’s salary; or, the ideal, to tithe 10 percent of one’s salary throughout the year. Surely our Lord will bless you.
This month has been a wonderful opportunity to learn that gratitude goes beyond the material things we have received, treating this month as a full season of thanksgiving. And when God calls us from this life, may we hear, with the Samaritan leper, our Lord say, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
May you and your family have a blessed and enjoyable Thanksgiving.
