Two weeks before Thanksgiving each year (on Wednesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time), our daily liturgy offers the story of the ten lepers whom Jesus cures (Lk 17:11-19). We know how the story progresses as the lepers beg Jesus to heal them, and then Jesus instructs them and they obey:

“Go show yourselves to the priests.”
As they were going they were cleansed.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
He was a Samaritan.
Jesus said in reply,
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?”

This story is also, appropriately, the reading for Thanksgiving Day with its emphasis on the man who returns to give thanks to the Lord for the way in which he has been blessed. I appreciate that emphasis when we celebrate Thanksgiving each year, but I believe that another lesson can be discerned in the story. It deals with the nine other lepers whom Jesus had cleansed.

There is no reason to think that these nine are bad people. They have suffered from a terrible disease for a long time and when they realize that Jesus has cured them, they eagerly rush into a different future. A future that will not force them to vacate roads when “healthy” people are passing by, or to remain separated from their families on special occasions, or to consider whether their illness stems from sinfulness. Their desire to move forward may well have hindered their ability to look backward. Yes. Not bad people, but people who have lost perspective and the need for an appropriate human response.

This aspect of the story invites us to look at our lives. Undoubtedly, we are grateful for the obvious and special blessings that we receive but are we attentive to the ordinary and everyday blessings that can escape our attention?  Perhaps some persons or situations or gifts have become expected, and we so hardly notice their presence until there is an absence.

One can appreciate the value of having this reading of the ten lepers two weeks before Thanksgiving. We can sense the encouragement to look more carefully at all the blessings that constitute our lives and that require our attention and expression of gratitude.

The situation of the nine lepers invites us to think about the inadequacy of simply feeling grateful. We must also express that gratitude in some way. We hear the challenge to reflect upon and to prepare ourselves for the opportunities on the day of thanksgiving.