Twenty-Eighth Sunday In Ordinary Time, Year C-- The Perfect Thank You Has Four Parts

John Kralik, a lawyer, found his life at a terrible, frightening low at age 53. He was twice-divorced, out of shape, had money troubles, and he had grown distant from his two older children and was afraid he might lose contact with his young daughter. But during his tough circumstances, an idea came to John: write one thank-you note every day for a whole year. This was John’s way of forcing himself to notice something positive in his life. He began writing one thank-you note each day to family members, friends, colleagues, former bosses and professors and teachers.

He has since written thousands of thank-you notes, and says that the perfect thank you has four parts, which can be found in our Readings today.

1.Always start with “thank you”-

John Kralik uses simple off-white note cards, not a pre-printed thank-you note, so the words “thank you” had to actually be hand-written so the person could be sure it was personal gratitude being expressed, not that of the greeting card company. John says, “I felt the words as I was writing them, and it helped to change my point of view.”

Look at Luke 17:16 from our Gospel. The healed Samaritan fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him from his heart.

To "fall upon one's face" is a posture of worship. Luke 5:12; 1 Cor 14:25.

By glorifying God and thanking Jesus—the Samaritan connected God and Jesus as being the same, which is “the identical description of the shepherds [at Christmas] after the angelic announcement of the birth of Jesus: "And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God. Similarly, the healed paralytic goes home glorifying God.

Eucharist means giving thanks in Greek eucharistön. The Eucharist in the Mass is an act of worship that gives glory to God. Worship of God is thanksgiving; it’s an act of gratitude. There is no use of eucharistö in the NT which does not have God receiving the thanks. 1

The second part for writing the perfect Thank-you note is to Recognize the Gift (or whatever they’ve done that’s created your gratitude)—

All ten healed lepers got to start their lives over and could get their certificates of health from the priests, but Jesus implies that the other nine are superficial. Yes, they happily went back to their lives, grateful for the time they have left, but their experience with Jesus faded into a past, onetime experience. There are some non-practicing Catholics who won’t shop at Walmart because they don’t pay their employees enough but won’t go to Mass to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord in the Eucharist. If we don’t worship God, we’ll worship something else that will become our god.

"Your faith has saved you" (vs. 19)

The third element in writing a Thank-You note is to write one true sentence — Why you’re grateful---

Sin is spiritual leprosy. Sharing the messy parts in confession, the sinful parts doesn't drag people down. It creates connection with Divine mercy in confession, as Jesus emphasized to Saint Faustina: encouragement, and makes us whole.

The final part is to tell that person what they mean to you—

The straightest line from point A to point B for Jesus is through Samaria to Jerusalem, rather than taking the longer, indirect route preferred by many Jews to avoid the Samaritans.

Thus, the Samaritan would say to Jesus, thank you for breaking down social and religious barriers to pass through my country.

"He is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility" (Ephesians 2:14). Our Catholic faith always moves us to unity and reconciliation.

BTW, John Kralik’s grandfather taught him to write thank you cards.

This helped him, after practicing law for 30 years, he was appointed to be a judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court where he served for 16 years, and he retired this year.

1 Thessalonians 5:18, “Giving thanks in all circumstances.” The verse is not a command to be thankful for bad things. It is a spiritual discipline where the act of consciously expressing gratitude can lead to a change in emotions.

…when was the last time you sent a thank you card to one of your clients or customers, family, friends?

1. DENNIS HAMM, S.J., What the Samaritan Leper Sees: The Narrative Christology of Luke 17:11-19, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Apr 1994, volume 56, issue 2, pages 273-287 (15p).