Homily 28th Sunday C 2025 – Fr Jeremiah Browne (National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies #southafrica #Botswana #eswatini #Swaziland)
The famous Roman philosopher and statesman, Cicero, once wrote “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. When we are grateful, we see rightly – we become less entitled, more generous, less anxious, more trusting, less self-absorbed, more aware of grace. Gratitude reorders the heart, and teaches us how to love.”
Both the first reading (2 Kings 5:14-17) and the gospel (Luke 17:11-19) today give us some of the most striking images of gratitude in all of Scripture. In the first reading, Naaman, an Assyrian, and therefore an outsider in the minds of the Jews, is cured and immediately returns to give thanks to God. In the gospel we hear the familiar story of how Jesus cured 10 lepers, but only one, a Samaritan, and therefore and outsider in the minds of the Jews, turns back to praise God and give thanks. The Samaritan’s return causes Jesus to ask, “Were not all 10 made clean?”
The truth is that we don’t know why the others didn’t show gratitude! All we can do is look to ourselves and ask “Do I take time to give thanks for the blessings in my life?”
When we practice the habits of thanksgiving and gratitude, we not only enrich the lives of the people who have helped us, but we also benefit our own life. Gratitude is not just a polite social gesture; it is a way of seeing. It opens our eyes to the presence of God in everything – in the small mercies of each day, in the people who walk beside us, in the quiet moments of peace, even in our struggles. When we are grateful, we stop asking, “Why don’t I have more?” and begin to say, “Look at all I’ve been given.” Gratitude transforms scarcity into abundance and turns ordinary moments into encounters with grace.
Without a spirit of gratitude, we turn into people who are never satisfied, people who constantly want more, people who spend their lives searching for something that is already part of their life, but they don’t have the eyes to see, people who miss the beauty in the day to day-ness of their lives.
People who give thanks, on the other hand, have developed the ability to find goodness in the strangest of places. They can celebrate the blessings that they have received, and live with a sense of hope and trust that “all will be well, and that all manner of things will be well”, as the great Julian of Norwich once declared.
Beyond gratitude, both stories today are stories of faith, because the two are linked. Both Naaman and the Samaritan came to acknowledge God at work in their lives. Naaman returned to Elisha and declared “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel” and the Samaritan returned, “glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.” Jesus acknowledges the faith of the Samaritan and says to him “Stand up your faith has saved you.”
The Eucharist, which we celebrate here today, is the great act of thanksgiving at the heart of our faith. The very word Eucharist comes from the Greek eucharistia, meaning “to give thanks.” Each time we gather around this altar, we come as a people who have been healed, forgiven, and restored by the mercy of God. Like Naaman and the Samaritan leper, we return to the Lord who has touched our lives with grace, and we say, “Thank you.”
Every Mass is an invitation to return – to remember, to give thanks, to fall at the feet of Christ, and to rise again with a new heart. Here at this altar, we become what we receive: a people of thanksgiving, a Eucharistic people. As a Eucharistic people, our mission is to go out and live our gratitude – to be witnesses of grace in a world hungry for meaning, healing, and hope.
When gratitude takes root in the heart, faith blossoms. When thanksgiving becomes our daily language, joy becomes our companion. When we see every blessing as gift, life itself finds meaning.
So today, let us pray for the grace to be like that Samaritan – to stop, to turn back, and to give thanks. Let us cultivate a spirit of gratitude that renews our hearts and shapes our lives. May our celebration of the Eucharist renew in us the desire to live differently – to live with gratitude, with joy, with compassion, and with faith that bears witness to the saving love of Christ.
Then, like the Samaritan, we too will hear the Lord say, “Rise, and go your way; your faith has saved you.”