Our readings today present two stories of healing and gratitude. In the first reading, Naaman, the army commander of the King of Aram (present-day Syria; its capital was Damascus), is healed from his leprosy. In the Gospel, ten (10) lepers, including a Samaritan, are healed from the same illness, leprosy.

Biblical leprosy was mostly skin diseases like ringworm, psoriasis, leukoderma and vitiligo. It rarely included Hansen’s disease as we know now. But the suffering of lepers in Biblical times was due to the way they were treated by the society. They were deemed unclean. They were separated from their families and society. They were treated as sinners who were being punished “by God” with a contagious disease. The Mosaic Law demands that (1) the priest shall declare the leper unclean; (2) the leper shall keep his garments rent and his head bare; (3) he shall muffle his beard; (4) he shall cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean’; and (5) he shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.

The Fathers of the Church note three parallels between the stories of Naaman and the ten lepers in the Gospel. First, both Naaman (a pagan) and the Samaritan leper (a gentile) were foreigners who sought healing. Second, both were ordered to perform an action. Elisha told Naaman to bathe in the rivers Jordan seven times; Jesus told the lepers to show themselves to the priest. It should be noted that in the Book of Leviticus, when a Jewish leper gets healed, as a general rule, he needs to present himself to the local priest who then confirms that he is now clean and permitted to return home and mix with the general public. Third, both Naaman and the Samaritan returned, praising God.

While we can see the theme of faith as the pre-requisite to healing, our readings centrally focus on the theme of gratitude. Gratitude is man’s response to the free and undeserved mercy of God. It is knowing that everything man receives is grace, a free gift welling from God’s generosity and love. Even the act of giving thanks is a gift. The Common Preface IV says, “For, although you have no need of our praise, yet our thanksgiving is itself your gift since our praises add nothing to your greatness but profit us for salvation through Christ our Lord.”

How do we express our gratitude to the Lord? Jesus is explicitly clear: “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” In times of desperate need, we call on to God, and rightly so. But it is also “truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give [you] thanks” the God who makes all things possible for us. It is truly right and just that we return to Him with our grateful hearts, praising and glorifying Him in the Eucharist. The Greek word from which we derive the word “Eucharist” means “thanksgiving”. When we see coming to the Eucharist as our imitation of the grateful return of the Samaritan leper to Jesus after getting healed, we will celebrate it so meaningfully and so joyfully. We will see the Eucharist not anymore as an obligation but an opportunity to give thanks. In fact, we will come to the Eucharist as often and as regularly as we can because we acknowledge, God blesses us every single day and every single moment of our lives.