GRATITUDE THAT ENDEARS US TO GOD

As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.

They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” And when he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” As they were going, they were cleansed.

One of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice. He fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. 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.”

THE BEAUTY OF GRATITUDE

The word “thanks” is just one syllable, but many are unable to pronounce it. This is due not to a speech impediment but to a moral deficiency which paralyzes their hearts. Some are fast in asking for favors, but very slow in showing gratitude once they have received what they wanted.

The group of nine lepers who were cured by Jesus and walked away unmindful of their benefactor, is just a tiny delegation of the immense throng of ungrateful persons who take everybody, every service, everything for granted. They take people for granted, even when the favor or service received may have cost a lot of sacrifice.

They take God for granted – His gift of creation, the gift of their very persons, with all the wonderful qualities of soul and body. They take for granted His grace, the Church, the Sacraments, eternal life!

Ungrateful people are too blind, too deaf, too insensitive, too dull or too proud to say thanks to anyone, including God. If He could ever be saddened, human ingratitude would surely make Him very sad.

Gratitude is spontaneous for few. For most of us, however, it is a virtue acquired gradually, just like humility, generosity and honesty, virtues on which it is based. We have to learn to be attentive and responsive even to the smallest signs of kindness or generosity toward us. We have to learn to show appreciation for what other people and God do for us.

Without our realizing it, such an awareness enriches us immensely as does the awareness that we are loved, and the desire to love in return. Gratitude is indeed a form of love – love returned. A simple way of being great. A great way of being human.

There are so many ways of being thankful. It can be a written note, a frank smile, a sincere handshake, a delicate caress, a silent tear, a word uttered when it is time to speak it, or a word kept unsaid when grateful love demands that it should not be said.

Whatever form it may take, gratitude can never be a momentary formality. When it becomes such, it is hypocrisy. Then it is no better than ingratitude. Real gratitude is rooted deep in the “heart” of a person. It is “utang na loob” that characterizes a person’s life and establishes him/her in a permanent attitude of being a grateful debtor. Such deeply rooted attitude becomes alive whenever the occasion arises.

Then life becomes an unceasing “Eucharist” - a Holy Thanksgiving, a joyous giving of self to God and neighbor, in imitation of, and in union with Jesus, the one who taught men the real meaning and the million shades of “utang na loob.”

LONG LIVE GENEROUS HEARTS

Today we are invited to reflect on the importance of being generous, regardless of whether we are rich or poor. The generosity of a person is not measured by the amount one gives, but by the disposition which prompts the giving.

There are many ways of being rich, just as there are many ways of being poor, for material wealth and money are not the only factors that determine what a person can offer. But the highest form of richness and generosity is that loving disposition toward others which, like an inexhaustible fountain, gives its very best without asking for anything in return.

Such spiritual richness will never be affected by any economic crisis because its “shares” are bonded with the abundant bank of God. In this Eucharist let us ask for this grace for ourselves and all the people dear to us.


In the course of his teaching Jesus said to the crowds, “Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets. They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE

"NO ONE CAN COME TO ME UNLESS
IT IS GRANTED HIM BY MY FATHER."

There comes a time in our life when we have to make important choices – choices that may have a repercussion on our state of life, our profession or work at hand, our plans and goals. The most fundamental choice concerns our relationship with Jesus Christ. We are constantly challenged to choose between faithfulness to his teachings and the allurements of the hedonistic world in which we are immersed.

This is a choice that demands both wisdom and generosity. Wisdom leads us to stand by Jesus. Generosity enables us to pay the price for choosing to follow Jesus. May today’s readings and Eucharist in which we participate lead us to make our own Peter’s humble statement: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”

As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

LITANY OF THE SACRED HEART, A BRIEF COMMENTARY PART IV

LITANY OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS, PART IV

16. HEART OF JESUS IN WHICH THE FATHER IS WELL PLEASED

Twice did the Father declare that He was well pleased with His Son: at the Jordan and on Mount Tabor. The Lord God had all reasons to be pleased with Jesus because He was always eager to do the Father's Will to the point of accepting to die on the Cross in fulfillment of the Divine Plan of Salvation. That was the highest test, and Jesus passed it with flying colors.

How different was the situation in the history of mankind when people who had received so much from God dared to ignore His clear orders and to prefer, instead, to follow the devil's temptation! From the Garden of Eden to the latest crime committed on the surface of the earth, we have an endless string of rebellions against God.

And we are part of that ugly chain of cases of unfaithfulness. We belong to the crowd of those who have displeased God. If we want to hear the consoling, affirming sentence, "You are my child, in whom I am well pleased," we have only one thing to do: imitate the example of our perfect Model, Jesus, the faithful servant and Son. Then, will the Father be pleased with us, too!

17. HEART OF JESUS OF WHOSE FULLNESS WE HAVE ALL RECEIVED

One of the great worries of the industrialized world is the gradual decrease of non-renewable sources of energy, such as oil and coal. No matter how vast the deposits of these non-renewable sources of energy may be, everybody knows that we are heading toward their depletion, with the consequent crisis this will usher in. Hence, the worry and the search for "alternative sources of energy".

This fear of an end of the "great bonanza" does not apply to moral and spiritual energies. In a special manner, it does not apply to the fullness of love, grace, and life that the Heart of Jesus is. These "spiritual riches" are, indeed, the essential content of the "fullness" we are reflecting upon in this invocation.

It is the fullness that John talks about at the beginning of His Gospel when he proclaims that God's only Son was "full of grace and truth" and that "from His fullness we have all received" (Jn 1:14b. 16).

It is the fullness of "spiritual water" - the Grace of the Holy Spirit - which Jesus promises the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:14); the fullness of life which Jesus offers to all those who believe in Him when He states, ""I have come that they may have life and life to the full" (Jn 10:10). This is the "inexhaustible fullness" we all have been enriched with.

18. HEART OF JESUS, DEEPEST DESIRE OF THE HUMAN HEART

Lover seeks lover. It is the nature of love to bring people to union and, when they are far part, to intensely desire to be together and nothing makes us happier than the fulfillment of such a yearning. This is true of the love that binds human beings. It is especially true of the love that binds God and us.

This is always verified with regard to God's love for us. He wants to be close to us, to ne part of our lives, our plans, our aspirations and even our difficulties. The signs of such desire are numberless for those who know how to read the alphabet of God's communication to us. The greatest and clearest sign of God's love for mankind is Jesus Christ, and His Heart is the core of it all.

It is in the Heart of Jesus - a heart afire with love, crowned with thorns and pierced by a lance - that we have the proof of how much God loves us. That same Heart teaches us, too, how much we should love God and yearn to be united with Him. All the Saints of the past and of the present, starting with Mary Most Holy, "have learned the lesson" and lived its message with great intensity, as they constantly sought to know His Love ever better and to be united with Him ever more.

19. HEART OF JESUS, PATIENT AND ABOUNDING IN MERCY

Patience is a sign and proof of love. We can see this most eloquently in the patience that parents, and especially mothers, have with their children - the way they put up with their whims and naughtiness, and even with their occasional aggressiveness and lack of love.

God is immensely more patient with us than the most patient of all mothers because He loves us more than any mother loves her child. And Jesus, with His loving and merciful Heart, is the clearest sign of God's patient love. We see His immense patience in the way He treats His hard-headed Disciples.

It is especially in His attitude toward sinners and enemies that the loving patience of His Heart becomes Mercy and Compassion. We see that in the way He treated the sinful woman caught in adultery and the prostitute who bathed His feet with her tears; in the way He conquered Zacchaeus, in the forgiveness he extended to Peter and the other Disciples who deserted Him; and in His praying for those who were crucifying Him.

Jesus wants that we, too, become as merciful as He was. He said to His Disciples, "Blessed are the merciful. They will be shown mercy" (Mt 5:7).

20. HEART OF JESUS, GENEROUS TO ALL WHO CALL UPON YOU

Generosity is another practical sign of love. And the most generous of all is the Lord God. He has manifested His generosity by giving mankind not only the whole of creation, but also the call to live with Him for ever. And when the human beings forfeited that unique privelege through their sinfulness, He sent His only Son, "born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law ..." (Gal 4:4 and also Jn 3:16).

And throughout His life, God's incarnate Son revealed the depth of the Father's generosity by changing jars of water into exquisite wine and by feeding hungry crowds; by granting the request for healing addressed to Him be lepers and other sick people. He restored the sight to blind persons, saved His frightened Disciples who were about to drown, and promised Paradise to the repentant thief on the Cross.

But the greatest signs of Christ's generosity were His offering His life for the salvation of all human beings, His instituting the Eucharist, and His giving the Holy Spirit to His Disciples that they might be guided to all truth, consoled in their troubles, and restored to God's grace through the ministry of the Church.

The generosity of His Heart is a constant invitation for us to do likewise.


LITANY OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS, PART III


MARIO COLLANTES
The Messenger of Divine Love
Volume II, Number 3
January-March 2008