Gratitude is the State of Communion between the Giver and the Receiver

On 20 January 2013, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church delivered a sermon in the chapel of Saint Gregory the Enlightener of the Patriarchal Residence in which he explained the significance of the evangelical pericope of the 29th Sunday after the Pentecost, of Luke 17:12-19, focused on the Healing of the ten lepers.

Jesus of Nazareth is a Healer of diseases who changed the sufferance into hope

The Patriarch of Romanian showed that the ten lepers were not healed through a healing word.

“Jesus Christ, the Saviour, met the ten lepers who asked for His mercy when they saw Him. That means that they wanted to be healed. The ten lepers had heard that Jesus of Nazareth was not only a great Teacher, but also a healer of diseases who changed the sufferance into hope, who raised those fallen into sin and healed those enslaved by sufferance and disease. The Saviour saw them and had mercy on them, but He did not ask them if they had faith and neither did He tell them “Be made clean of leprosy!” Saint Evangelist Luke shows us that Jesus Christ does not utter a healing word and neither does He ask anything from the ten lepers, but He only sends them to show themselves to the priests, according to Moses’ law”, His Beatitude said, as Trinitas Radio station informs us.

Gratitude is the natural characteristic of human dignity

The Primate of the Romanian Orthodox Church has emphasised that gratitude is a state of spiritual good health. Gratitude is the natural characteristic of human dignity. Lack of gratitude is not natural because when man thanks God for beneficences and the people through whom God worked in their life he is in good spiritual health, just and full of dignity. When he does not thank he is not in good health, is not natural, is unjust and with no dignity. Thus, gratitude is not needed as praise for oneself, but Christ asks it from the nine lepers as a state of spiritual good health. So, we learn that although He does not need the peoples’ thanksgiving Christ appreciates the one who thanks God and his fellow beings so that gratitude is the state of communion between the Giver and receiver, between the one who does good and the one who enjoys it. This is why the Church understood best this Gospel of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, from the leper healed who thanked and was grateful when he insisted and insists that we should thank God, and thanksgiving and gratitude should be the most dignified activity, most just and noble of the Church which is named Eucharist.

Next week, the Orthodox Christians will be on the 31th Sunday after the Pentecost.

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