28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C (2025)

If I were to ask you what Mass is about, how would you respond? What is its purpose? What happens at Mass? There are several good and correct ways to respond to that, but one of the things that Mass is about is coming to express our gratitude to God for the blessings we receive from Him. In today’s Gospel, we're told of this inherent connection between expressing gratitude and ritual. Jesus healed the leper and one of them returned to give thanks to God.

Perhaps too many of us Catholics believe that Mass is primarily about how it satisfies us. For some, it’s largely about being entertained: hearing music they like or preaching that suits them. For others, it’s about encountering the people with whom they’ve established connections. Some may believe it’s about the satisfaction that comes from the coffee and donuts that follow.

But perhaps, instead of merely what the Mass does for us, it should be understood in light of what we bring to God. We bring our broken selves, our causes for prayer on our hearts, our need for strength, our need for forgiveness, and as we hear today, our causes for gratitude.

I recently spoke with a friend on her birthday, asking if her family was doing something special for her that evening or taking her out to dinner. She wasn’t complaining or sad, but nonetheless, acknowledged that the restaurants she prefers are not places her children like. So, for her birthday, they tend to go to places of the children’s choosing. And she still finds joy in it.

As we tend to do when we are children, making it usually about ourselves, let us ask: Do we make the Mass more about us, rather than about God? If that’s the case, then perhaps there’s little wonder that people so easily elect to stop attending Mass when it doesn’t satisfy their immediate impulses. It’s not about us.

But there’s another point worth considering regarding our expressions of gratitude. Even though only one of the lepers in today’s Gospel returned to give thanks to God, all ten lepers were healed by their faith in Jesus. As we know, Jesus did not heal immediately upon request. Their faith was demonstrated when they followed Jesus’ instructions, to go and show themselves to the priests who would certify that they were cleansed.^[1]

They trusted Jesus so much, believing that they would be healed, and acted as if they were already healed, even before it happened. Our faith should be like that. When we pray for a good thing and do not get it, at least at first, Jesus would tell us: “All that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours” (Mark 11:24). In other words, we do well to pray as if we had already received it, to thank God even before you get it.^[2]

Why? Not because we are playing mental tricks on ourselves, as some psychologists tell us to do, and certainly not because we can manipulate God, but because we can be certain that since God is infinitely good and loving, and infinitely wise, and infinitely powerful, we will receive what we have asked for if it is really a good thing for us.^[3]

You and I are invited to be like the ten lepers, who acted as if they had already received healing from Jesus, as they went off to show themselves to the priests. Of course, we may be wrong about what is best for us because our judgment is not infallible. But God is infallible. We make mistakes about what is best for us. He never does.^[4]

We are blessed whether we take time to recognize it or acknowledge it. To God, the source of our blessings—those realized or still to be realized—let us see this Mass as our response as we lift our hearts in gratitude.

^[1] Kreeft, Peter. Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings (Cycle C) (Food for the Soul Series Book 3) (p. 675). Word On Fire. Kindle Edition.

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.