Who Do You Have to Thank?

Today we read in our gospel about 10 lepers who are all healed by Jesus. However, only one returns to thank Jesus. We might look at this and think the the moral of the story is clear; 1 leper is thankful and 9 are ungrateful. Maybe there’s a deeper message. I would think that all 10 lepers were very thankful. The difference with the one that comes back is that he knows not only what he is thankful for, but he knows to whom he has to go to offer that thanks.

Like the lepers, we too have much for which we should be thankful. Likewise we need to realize the one to whom we owe our thanks. The word Eucharist means thanksgiving. It is God that deserves our thanks and the Eucharist is the perfect place to offer that thanks.