On this day we pause to appreciate our blessings. I’d like to reflect on something that seems to be all around us and is taking our blessing away if we let it—Entitlement.
Here’s a little secret: we aren’t entitled to anything. As children of God, no blessing we receive is because we earned it or were somehow more deserving than someone else. Every blessing we have—our families, our homes, our health, even this very moment—is given to us onlythrough the grace of God,not our own merit. Yet we are seeing today a new generation who feels entitled and they are removing from their vocabulary two massively powerful words—Thank you
Look around. We’re sitting in a warm, beautiful church… and let’s be honest, we are all very, very good looking. We are blessed.
So let us celebrate this day, remembering the simple message the Scriptures gives us today:
Be grateful: Thank God—and actually say it out loud.
Now in the Gospel today, Jesus heals ten lepers, but only one comes back to thank Him.
Ten received a miracle; only one remembered his manners! Maybe the other nine thought they were entitled to be healed.
But Jesus notices who? – the one who returns. Why? Because gratitude isn’t just polite—it transforms the heart.
Sirach tells us today, “Bless the God of all, who has done wondrous things.” St. Paul in the second reading begins his letter by saying, “I give thanks to my God always for you.” Thanksgiving is not a day on the calendar just to get together with friends and family to have a meal, but Thanksgiving is a day we all should re-position of our hearts towards God and show our gratitude, and not just today, but every day.
Still, we are human, and let’s not kid ourselves. Today we give thanks… and tomorrow we might complain because there’s no more pie left.
But God isn’t asking for perfection. He’s inviting us into a lifestyle that sees everything—the big things and the small things—as a gift. A gift from Him.
St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, said,
“What most draws down God’s blessings is gratitude.”
When we see everything as grace, we open our hearts to receive even more.
So this Thanksgiving, let’s begin to reshape our hearts:
When Grandma asks why you never call, thank God for her and your family.
When the turkey is dry enough to start a fire, thank God for the meal.
When you can’t find parking tomorrow at the mall, thank God you’re healthy enough to walk.
And above all, let us not be like the nine lepers, but be like the one leper—be the ones who return to Jesus and say: “Lord, everything I have, everything I am, is Your gift… and I thank You.”
May this Thanksgiving fill our stomachs but even more, fill our hearts. And may gratitude become our daily prayer.
