Gratitude and Spiritual Perfection
Homily
Saturday, October 13, and Sunday, October 14, 2007
Sacred Heart Parish, Yale; Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish, Emmett

Today we will meditate on gratitude, and how it aids us in attaining our spiritual goal. What is gratitude? How can it help us? How can we practice it? Two passages in today’s readings help us: the narration of Naaman the Leper, and of the Ten Lepers Cured by Jesus.

Both of these passages have something in common: they were cured by a word. In Naaman’s case, who washed himself in the Jordan, it wasn’t the Jordan which cured him, but the word of the Prophet Elisha, successor to Elijah. The ten lepers in Israel were cured by the word of the Word Himself, Jesus the Lord.

The Old Testament passage comes from II Kings. The ancient writers referred to this book as IV Kings, but in more recent times, I and II Kings are called I and II Samuel; you may notice this in your own scripture reading at home, depending on the edition of the Bible you use.

In the New Testament Passage, about the Ten Lepers, the one who returned was a Samaritan. Samaria was something like remnant nation, leftovers of an evil brood, in the mind of the Jews. Centuries before, ten of the twelve tribes of Israel, in great conflicts with Jeroboam and Rehoboam, split from the tribe of Judah, and the remaining tribe had been lost. Judah had Jerusalem as its capital; from the name Judah we get the name Jew, and therefore it is not the same to say ‘Israelite’ or to say ‘Jew.’ The prophets in the books of Kings take sides: Judah was faithful, the ten tribes of Israel were not and sinned against God, and were punished by God when the Assyrians conquered them and took them off into captivity, and occupied the land of the ten tribes, and this land is Samaria. So the Jews looked upon Samaria, both the land and its people, as sinful, unclean, unfaithful, mixed with foreign nations and excluded from the Chosen People. Yet Jesus healed this wound, for he came to save all the peoples of the earth, including the Samarians; and among the Samarians, in Acts, we find some of the earliest who believed in the Lord.

Naaman the Leper, and the one Samaritan cured by Jesus – not the other nine – came back and gave thanks, and with their thanks, God gave them both faith in the Lord.

So, what is gratitude? If it moves God so generously, how can we understand it, so as to grow in our spiritual lives? Gratitude, as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us, is the virtue “by which that which is due is returned to one’s benefactor.” There are many things which are due to many for different reasons. To God, we owe religion. To our parents and nation, we owe piety, and so forth. Gratitude is giving what we owe to one who has given to us, in the right time, manner, degree and place.

Take a tree; first, it receives pollen, which makes it fecund. This is like the person who not only receives in the body, but in his mind; in other words, he has received a gift, and realizes it. That is the first part of gratitude: understanding in one’s mind that I have received something good from someone else. Second, the tree sprouts forth magnificent flowers, sometimes white, or red, or yellow. I have never seen so many colors of flowers filling so many trees as in springtime in Germany. Yellows, pinks, whites, reds, purples, and mixes of all these. What autumn is in Michigan, Spring is in the Eifel. So, this is like the soul who expresses praise externally, which we do not by springing forth flowers, but with the flower of our words and gestures. Third, this same tree, from the flower, puts forth fruit; and so, the grateful soul returns some good for the good received.

This analogy is weak, for the flowers come before the pollination. But as all three things are required for a tree to bear fruit, flower, pollination and the fruit itself, so too all three things are required for a soul to be truly grateful, namely: first, to become aware of the gift received, second to thank and praise with words and gestures, and third to return some gift for the gift received. For gratitude is the first degree of love, and of the other degrees, we will have to speak on another occasion.

And so the question: are you grateful towards others? This means towards God, towards neighbor (including your family!), and even towards your enemy. Yes, your enemy. For by imposing countless and grave sufferings upon you, your enemy makes you like Jesus. We must love our enemy, and if gratitude is the first degree of love, we must be grateful even to him.

Yet often we forget to thank. We take, we consume, we demand more. Can that be love? We don’t thank, because we are slaves of our whims, likes and dislikes. We don’t thank, because we are bitter and worn down by the endless sufferings of this life on earth. And so the soul that thanks is a rare soul, and a beautiful soul, like a flower springing out of the midst of the ice and snow when all else is dead. The grateful give hope to the world.

Sometimes people thank God by making private vows to him, or promises, like to give up drinking, or to fast on a day. Other times, people come and light a candle to one of God’s saints, whom he loves, and whose veneration pleases him. Sometimes I have seen souls put flowers before images of Mary to thank her for her intercession with God; as I saw true mountains of flowers before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe when I went there with the Trailblazers in 2005. If a word cured Naaman and the Ten Lepers, may it cure you; may your word of Gratitude cure you of bitterness, and may Jesus the Word cure you of all sin. Amen.

            The Catholic Church is continually criticized. We find it is so not only from non-Catholics, but from Catholics, which is very sad, and I can’t say justified. Many of the more serious criticisms come in the theological world, and they are important ones. Two of these are, “sola fides” and “sola scriptura.” Sola fides, or “by faith alone,” is an erroneous doctrine which says that a person is saved by one act of faith, once and for all, in Jesus as his Lord and Redeemer. Sola scriptura, or “the scripture alone,” is an erroneous doctrine which rejects the role of the Church’s infallible Magisterium in interpreting matters of faith and morals; this doctrine says that when the individual Christian reads the scriptures, the Holy Spirit inspires them sufficiently to know the divine truths. Both of these errors are to this day widely circulated by almost every Protestant sect.

            Yet both of these positions are rejected by the sacred scriptures, particularly 2 Timothy, which we read today, and is the focus of today’s homily. First, I will stress the Catholic teachings found in it which refute both sola fides and sola scriptura; then I will show how to live St. Paul’s teachings in our private lives; and then how to do so in our public lives. The importance of October for the question of the defense of the unborn goes undisputed, but I will address the Gospel of Life later this month.

            St. Paul says, “I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have though the imposition of my hands.” For St. Timothy, to whom Paul the Apostle writes, had been made Bishop of Ephesus, where later both St. John the Apostle and the Blessed Virgin were to migrate. By now St. Paul was getting close to the end of his life, it seems that he writes from his final incarceration in Rome before he had his head cut off with a sword, in the manner of the Roman Citizens condemned to death, for citizens did not get the crucifixion. This is why art portrays St. Paul always with a sword. Timothy had been chosen for this dignity because of his great knowledge of the scriptures, showing that sacred knowledge is very important for the ordained clergy. This expression also shows that the Apostles themselves, in order to impose Holy Orders used the laying on of hands, clearly refuting those who deny that the priesthood is one of the seven sacraments.  

            Now, St. Paul says, “Stir into flame.” If “sola fide” was true, that we are saved “by faith alone,” and no other good deed could merit our salvation, then St. Paul would have been teaching an error in matter of faith while he composed the text of sacred scripture; but this is impossible, for the Bible is not in error about such matters. Timothy had to do more than profess, once and for all, Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He had to act, he had to be attentive to the Holy Spirit, he had to do something. This is one of very many instances in the scriptures which show that “sola fide” is an erroneous teaching. We need to act according to our faith, or we can loose the salvation given us at Baptism.

            St. Paul also says, “Take as your norm the sound words that you heard from me.” He did not tell Timothy to go to scripture alone, “sola scriptura,” but rather to remember the words that he taught to him. Therefore, there are apostolic teachings which are not in the Scripture. The whole of revelation was given first to the prophets, and then to the Apostles; it was their job to pass it on to us. They did so in to ways: by what they transmitted directly in life (words and deeds) and by what they wrote. This is what is meant by “sacred scripture” and “sacred tradition.” They are the two wings, so to speak, of the great bird which is God’s revelation to us, his own children.

            And so how are we to practice what we have read today and learned, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and the sure teachings of the Church?

            I would recommend one way in particular, but perhaps you have already drawn some very good and useful conclusions, promises which will help you towards your own, daily conversion from sin and towards God, the love of your soul. This way I recommend is as follows: Learn your faith.

            Some are quick to say, “But I already know it.” You may know the basics, or some of the basics, or even the basics mixed in with some error, so you need to continually form yourself in your own faith. Read, memorize, discuss, pray: and so nourish your mind with the truths for which it was made.

            Others are quick to say, “many can know the faith, but then not live it.” That is true, but no one can live the faith, unless they know it. And we need to do more than believe; we need to know what we believe; and believing, we need to stir the gift of faith “into flame,” as St. Paul encouraged Timothy.

            Others also reply, “How can I study, when I have so little time.” Little time? If anyone in 2007, anyone on the face of the earth, has time, it is Americans. But we use it so foolishly. We’re always in so much of a hurry, we really accomplish little. And we burn hour upon hour of our life staring at that box of transistors and pixels, that horrible machine popularly known as the TV. How many hours of TV do you watch each week? And you don’t have time to read Catholic literature, lives of the Saints and the scriptures themselves?

            How many souls abandon the faith because a Protestant friend or pastor meets them, and leads them astray? How many times we do evil, because we don’t know the arguments to defend what is good? I encourage you to know your faith, to let your minds be molded by the faith, and to take the shape of the truths of the faith, for this truth is infallible and eternal, indeed it is a person, Jesus, the Word himself, who is not only our way and our life, but also our Truth and the one Truth of all truths. Amen.