What is the will of God?
Many of us learn it from Catechism class. This is how we might have learned it:
Q. Who made you?
A. God made me.
Q. Why did God make you?
A. God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next.
Indeed, to know, love and serve God for salvation is God's will for us. Today’s readings invite us to learn that living with thanksgiving is also God's will for you and me.
St Paul reminds us of this. In his first Letter to the Thessalonians, he teaches that “In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus”(1 Thessalonians 5.18).
This is Paul’s reminder that gratitude is not about good manners, nor is it an option in Christian life. Instead, he exhorts anyone professing to be Christian to make gratitude our attitude.
Let’s be honest, how often do we forget?
In today’s Gospel, ten lepers cry out to Jesus for mercy. All ten are healed. But only one comes back. Only one returns shouting for joy, falling at Jesus’ feet, giving thanks. And he is a Samaritan—a foreigner.
Jesus notices the absence of the nine. Healing was given to all ten. But only one hears these words: “Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.”
That is the difference gratitude makes. Healing touches the body. But gratitude opens the heart to salvation.
Notice the words of Jesus: “Stand up.” For the early Christians, that was resurrection language. The Samaritan leper, once dead to his community, now rises to new life. Gratitude leads to resurrection.
We see the same pattern in the first reading. Naaman the Syrian is healed of leprosy. Like the Samaritan, he is an outsider. But once cleansed, he does not walk away. He comes back in thanksgiving, and then he makes a bold confession of faith: “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.”
Gratitude transforms him. It moves him from receiving a gift to committing his life to the Giver.
The psalm takes us deeper: “The Lord has made his salvation known. Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done wondrous deeds.” Truly, salvation and thanksgiving do belong together.
When we remember what God has done, when we name his blessings, our hearts cannot stay silent. We break into song, and our spirit lift us heavenwards. Isn’t this true? Haven’t you and I experienced it before?
In the second reading, Paul tells Timothy and us “Remember the Good News…Jesus Christ risen from the dead.” His message reminds us that gratitude flows from remembering. Remembering who God is and what He has done in Jesus and through his death and resurrection. Remembering this truth as God's continuing faithfulness in all our lives.
The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar puts it this way: Gratitude is what carries faith forward. At first, many of us come to God in need—like the ten lepers, like Naaman, searching for help. But gratitude changes that. Gratitude shifts us from simply asking to believing. From receiving to following. From being a seeker to a disciple.
Isn’t that what happens at every Mass when we celebrate the Eucharist? The word 'Eucharist' means thanksgiving. And thanksgiving must be our way of life because this is the very attitude Jesus exemplified throughout the Gospels. At the Last Supper, Jesus gave thanks before giving himself for us. At Lazarus’ tomb, He gave thanks before calling the dead back to life. With the loaves and fishes, He gave thanks before the miracle.
Do you see the pattern? Thanksgiving precedes salvation. Gratitude makes room for the miracle.
And so, let’s be wise and learn. That when gratitude is our attitude, our hearts open to God’s saving work. And that when gratitude is missing, life shrinks. We grow bitter, discontent, divided. But when we give thanks, life expands–and we’ll find God in everything. We'll also be restored to communion for we’ll recognise God in the midst of our living and working, serving and worshipping, together. Our spirit is renewed as we are drawn into God’s life and joy.
The mystic Julian of Norwich once said: “The highest form of prayer is to the goodness of God.” To give thanks for God's goodness—this is the prayer that pleases Him most. And dare I add, that is truly God’s delight in us.
So let us ask: Are we like the nine who forgot? Or like the one who returned?
Today, the Samaritan leper shows us that to live is to give thanks. Even more, that to be a disciple is to be grateful.
So, if we really want to be saved, we must let thanksgiving be the attitude that shapes our whole life. Then, it will be our Christian way we live with God and one another.
So as we come to this Eucharist, let us join the psalmist again and say, “Sing joyfully to the Lord, all you lands; break into song, sing praise.”
Because gratitude is not just a feeling. It is the attitude of Christian faith. It is the commitment of the disciples of Christ. It is the most fundamental human attitude that saves.
So, let’s make gratitude our way of life. Shall we?
Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
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