At that time: As Jesus was going to Jerusalem, he passed through the midst of Samaria in Galilee. And as he entered into a certain town, there met him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off: and lifted up their voice, saying: Jesus, master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said: Go, show yourselves to the priests. And it came to pass that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was cleansed, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God; and he fell on his face, before his feet, giving thanks: and this was a Samaritan. { 387} And Jesus answering, said: Were there not ten made clean? and where are the nine? There is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger. And he said to him: Arise, go thy way, for thy faith hath made thee whole.
_Where are the nine?_ --St. Luke xvii. 11. [USCCB: St. Luke xvii. 17.]
Of the ten lepers whose cure is related in this day's Gospel, only one returned to give thanks, and he was a Samaritan; the others went their way; they were cured indeed of their dreadful disease, but disgraced by our Lord's sad question, Where are the nine?
Thanksgiving, brethren, should follow after God's mercies to us, not only as a matter of justice, but in order to secure the effect of those mercies themselves. Just as, in our bodily life, in order to get the benefit of fresh air, breathing _in_ must be followed by breathing _out_, so the giving of thanks must follow the reception of all divine favors. The grace of God is to the soul what the breath is to the body; and the body, to live, must not only draw the air in, but give it forth again to make room for new and fresher air. So in the life of our souls we breathe in God's grace and we breathe out thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is furthermore a matter of justice. The holiest debt we owe to God or man is the debt of thanks. Every honest man gives thanks for favors received from other men, and every upright soul gives thanks to God. { 388} It is the most indispensable of all our obligations, because it is the least that we can do. In all our traffic with heaven, gratitude is the only coin we can mint ourselves. Thanksgiving is that part of our sanctification necessarily our own. Well, brethren, if this be really true and who can deny it?--then a great many of us are insolvent debtors of the worst kind. Now you hear it said sometimes that the man who does not pay his debts is as bad as a thief, and in many cases this is perfectly true. So the difference between an open sinner and a thankless Christian is that between a thief and a man who by his own fault does not pay his debts. Indeed, we sometimes feel as if God ought to thank us for the favor we do him by condescending to serve him. Confession and Communion and daily prayer, forgiveness of in juries and resisting temptations so puff us up with conceit that we are apt to blame God because in view of our holiness he does not exempt us from the ordinary ills of life!