Standing Firm with a Thankful Heart
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time- October 9, 2022
First Reading: 2 Kings 5:8-15
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 111:2-3,4-5,7-8,9-10
Second Reading: 2 Timothy 2:8-13
Gospel Reading: Luke 17:11-19
The pandemic has brought a drastic change in our lives. And as it eases now, we see a world filled with hungry people…hungry for meaning of life. Many people are turning to so many things. And we can see the world now as a huge market, everyone has something to sell. People tend to learn so many things and because of these, the need for the church to go and feed them with the word of God is urgent to satisfy their hunger and longing in life. The world is longing for Christ. And we, the church, are commissioned to go and bring Christ to the world.
Our gospel today mentions the term “go” twice, reminding us church of our mission.
The lepers in our scripture reading cries out loud to Lord Jesus to have mercy on them. This is also the case with the world today, it cries out for mercy from God. The lepers obeyed Jesus when He told them to go and have themselves checked by the priest, but only one remembered to go back and give thanks to Jesus and praise God. We can see from this story the common attitude of many of us now. It is the joy of God to bless us, He demands not, but He expects us to be thankful always.
As Jesus commanded the lepers to go, it is the same word He is telling to us church – go on our mission. But as we go out to bring the Gospel, we need to cultivate the following in our hearts: 1) faith – obeying God, believing what He will do for you; and 2) gratitude – when you obey God because of what He has done for you from the past.
Gratitude and thankfulness is an attitude. Attitude is the most important thing as we walk our life with Christ and our mission. And how are we going to cultivate it in our lives? According to Father Jun, these are the ingredients:
- Learn to expand or widen our perception of life. See things beyond your family, your work or your business. Open your mind to many things and learn to appreciate the value of every thing. We should stop being too conscious of the prices that oftentimes blinded us to value small things. Let us begin to perceive the value of what has been given to us so that we can learn to appreciate.
- Be humble. A humble person realizes that what he has in life is something he doesn’t deserve. Once you realize that everything is a gift, a bonus in life…it makes you humble.
- True gratitude in the heart needs to be expressed. Appreciation must be shown or expressed. Once we learn to express our gratitude to Jesus, it praises God. We should come in humility and express our true gratitude to God.
Realizing what God has done for us and will be doing for us, He deserves our utmost appreciation and gratitude. We should not only keep it in our hearts but we should be bold also in expressing it. He expects us to become grateful. A token is always an expression of gratefulness. We have nothing great to give God as a token, but we have life to give back to Him. Our willingness to use our life for Him is already a token. Be bold then, St. Michael Cathedral!
Recap by:
MERCY DE LA CRUZ-ESPIRITU
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stmichaelkalibo
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saintmichaelkalibo
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/141718362@N07/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104587191745272872189
Tumblr: http://saintmichaelkalibo.tumblr.com/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/stmichaelkalibo/
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/saintmichaelkalibo/
Blogger: http://saintmichaelkalibo.blogspot.com/
iTunes Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/ph/podcast/cathedral-church-saint-michael/id1139105076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4DiiezN2MKXqq8OX7pvhaZ
