Luke 17: 11-19 (Thursday, November 22, 2007 – Thanksgiving Day, USA)

Today is a special day in which we thank God for all he has done for us in the previous year. In the gospel of today, Jesus praises the Samaritan leper because he returned to him. The offer of salvation extended to him by Jesus is not so much that Jesus wanted his praise or the praise of the other nine, but what it exemplified is his total dependence on Jesus as the source of his existence and salvation. As we pray in one of the prefaces to the Eucharistic prayers, “our prayer of thanksgiving adds nothing to your greatness, yet our desire to praise you is itself a gift from you.”

Jesus taught us to always be thankful to God. He showed this by his own life of thanksgiving. Not only that he offered his life and continues to offer his life as a thanksgiving sacrifice, but again and again in the scriptures, he paused to praise the Father for all the work he has accomplished through him.

We come to thank God because that is what our faith teaches us to do. St. Paul tells us in Colosians 2:7 that our lives should be rooted in Christ and be full of thanksgiving. Our whole lives should be full of thanksgiving. If not for anything, but for what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. We may look back the whole year and say, what have I to thank God for? You may ask, where was he when my spouse was diagnosed of cancer? Where was he when my home was foreclosed? Where was Jesus when I was fired from my job? Where was he when I had that terrible car crash? You may conclude that there is no need to celebrate this thanksgiving. St. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, for all things, be thankful to God. We are called not to be thankful in only the good things that happened to us. We got to be thankful for everything - for the joys, the sorrows, the pains, the lost, the illnesses, the success, and the deaths. Be thankful in everything. I want to assure you that God was present all the way and he is the reason you are here today. If he left you for a moment, you would have been dead. With joyful hearts, let us praise him.

Prayer:
Thank you Jesus for the food, the shelter, the clothing, and above all, for the breath of life. We praise and worship you. We say may you receive all the glory, honor, adoration, power and majesty, in heaven and on earth.