Reflection by Fr Peter Kooloos, These are two powerful words which at times we find difficult to say or fail to say when someone has either given us a gift or when they have done something for us. Yet it is very important for both us and the person who has giving us something or done something for us. If we don’t say, ‘thank you’, when someone has done something for us or given us something then we are in grave danger of taking people for granted. It also discourages the other person from either giving or doing good.
The gospel of this Sunday’s Mass illustrates this very clearly. It is he story about the ten lepers whom Jesus cured from their leprosy and only one of them came back to say, ‘thank you’.
Up until the end of the nineteenth century leprosy was a much-dreaded disease not only because of the effects the disease had on the person’s body, but even more, because it meant that the person suffering from it could no longer live in their community. This in practice meant that they usually had to live with a group of other lepers in complete isolation from their community and family. They also would have had no access to most of the services which are normally provided by a community. The film, Damien of Molokai, gives a good insight of what life was like in these leper communities or leper colonies as they were known. The only modern comparison one can find for life in one of these leper colonies is life in prison. The only way out of these colonies and to live back in their community was to be cured from their leprosy, and this was very rare. In this context it is easy to see why Jesus was so disappointed that only one of the ten lepers came back to say, ‘thank you’.
In the light of the gospel story about the ten lepers, we need to ask ourselves: Do I always say, ‘thank you’, when someone has given me something or done something for me, or do I take them for granted?
