We are so blessed. We are so undeservedly blessed. Every Sunday we gather in this Church to
celebrate the great gift that Jesus left us in the Eucharist. We celebrate his presence. We celebrate his love for us. We celebrate that he became “true food and true
drink” (cf. Jn 6:55) for us. Yes, we
take it for granted at times, even priests, but every now and then we need to
stop and give thanks for the great gift that we have in the Eucharist. Giving thanks is at the core of today’s
gospel where the leper who was cured returned to Jesus in gratitude. If you read this gospel passage in Greek, you
will notice that the word for “giving thanks” in Greek is ευχαριστία (eucharistía) which we translate as eucharist. So what the leper does is what we do every
time we approach the altar of the Lord.
We approach to give thanks.
This past week I went on my yearly retreat, and I, along
with twenty of my brother priests, was blessed to have as my retreat master the
retired archbishop of New York, Cardinal Edward Egan. All week long, Cardinal Egan tried to impress
upon us the importance about emphasizing to all of you how blessed we are to
celebrate the Eucharist, to receive such a gift, to be able to take part in
this great sacrifice of the Mass. Each
day he would begin Mass by reminding us that “Mass is Calvary here with
us. Jesus Christ is our Priest and our
Victim. We are priests with him in renewing
and making sacramentally present again the sacrifice and the wonder of Calvary.” He reminded us that as his priests we take
part in bringing Christ to you and the importance of instilling in our faithful
a great love for the Eucharist. I have
said it time and again that there is no greater act that we do all week that is
greater than this divine act of love that we mutually exchange with our God
here on this altar. This is why we are
blessed because we get to take part in “the wonder of Calvary” which is made
present in the Mass. Jesus told his
disciples that “many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did
not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it (Luke 10:24).” Jesus could have very well been talking to
us. We get to hear his Living Word and get
to eat this life giving food, his very flesh, every time we gather in this church. This is why we must constantly give
thanks. Despite the hardships that we
endure out there, we have a place of refuge in here where our Lord becomes
present for us, and we have the opportunity, like the leper, to throw ourselves
at his feet to give thanks.
Imagine how our world would be
if we said “thank you” more often.
Imagine if we took this “eucharistic spirit” with us when we left. This morning, as Pope Francis consecrated the
Church to the heart of Mary, he talked about the importance of these two simple
words: “Saying “thank you” is such an
easy thing, and yet so hard! How often do we say “thank you” to one another in
our families? These are essential words for our life in common. “Sorry”,
“excuse me”, “thank you”. If families can say these three things, they will be
fine. “Sorry”, “excuse me”, “thank you”. How often do we say “thank you” in our
families? How often do we say “thank you” to those who help us, those close to
us, those at our side throughout life? All too often we take everything for
granted! This happens with God too. It is easy to approach the Lord to ask for
something, but to go and thank him: “Well, I don’t need to”.
Yes, all too often we come to
the Lord with a list of grievances, which he is all too happy to attend to,
when we should be approaching him first with a spirit of thanksgiving. We should also go out of our way to thank
those who help us on the journey as well.
I remember in seminary that one of my spiritual directors taught me the
importance of the lost art of a hand written thank you note. Not a text, not an email, not a letter, but a
hand written note. It’s more
personal. It makes us go deeper into our
heart to show our gratitude. This is
what we must do when we approach the table of the Lord: go deep into our hearts
and realize how blessed we are to simply abide in his presence to give him
thanks. How blessed our world would be
if we approached God and each other more often with those two simple words: thank
you.
