St. Frances Xavier Cabrini and Giving Thanks for the Kindness and Generous Love of God, 32nd Wednesday (II), November 13, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Wednesday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini
November 13, 2024
Ti 3:1-7, Ps 23, Lk 17:11-19

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• “In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess 5:18), we sang as we prepared for today’s Gospel. Our Christian vocation is one of continuous thanksgiving in all circumstances. We have a beautiful dialogue in the heart of every Mass when the priest says, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,” the people reply, “It is right and just” and the priest adds, “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father.” We pray those words on Easter Sunday but also throughout Lent, we pray them and nuptial Masses as well as funerals, we pray them in the midst of prosperity and persecution. It is right and just always and everywhere, in all circumstances, to praise and thank God. To do so is first a religious duty, out of gratitude to God for all that he has given us and done for us. But it’s also the path to our salvation. We see the salvific importance of thanksgiving in today’s Gospel.
• Jesus today heals ten lepers. To have leprosy in the ancient world was about the worst thing that could befall you. Not only would Hansen’s disease eat away your flesh and bones, not only would it lead to your having the most sickening smell imaginable, but it would lead to your total banishment from society. You had to live apart from civilization. You were cut off from your family. You were cut off from simple things like being able to go to the market for groceries or to the well for water. In some sense you were cut off from God because you couldn’t go to the synagogue on Saturdays or the Temple for major feasts. People couldn’t approach closer than 50 feet from you and when you were near anyone you needed to ring a bell and cry out “Unclean! Unclean!” One of the toughest things of being a leper was that the only people with whom you could relate were other lepers, with all the psychological, physical and spiritual problems that lepers bore.
• When Jesus approached, the lepers with diaphragms trained from yelling out “Unclean! Unclean!,” stood at a distance from Jesus, raised their voice, and begged, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” Very few people had genuine mercy on them. People just tried to stay as far away from lepers as possible, as if the leprosy were somehow the lepers’ fault. Jesus did have mercy. He responded, “Go, show yourselves to the priests,” because priests were the only ones under the Mosaic law who were able, intelligently, to pronounce a leper healed and to return him or her to society. Even to say this was to imply that he had cured them, but he actually didn’t pronounce them cured. It took an act of faith on their part to start journeying to find a priest simply on Jesus’ word. But that’s what they did. As they were journeying, however, St. Luke tells us one of them, a Samaritan, realizing he had been healed, turned around. Before he would show himself to the priests, he wanted to thank the one who had given him a miracle. Glorifying God, he came to Jesus, fell at his feet, and poured out his heart in gratitude. Jesus’ words are very powerful: “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?” He knew he had cured all ten of leprosy, but only one was showing gratitude. Jesus then drew attention to the fact that the man who returned was a Samaritan, someone for whom the Jews had centuries of animosity as those who did not worship God aright. “Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” What he was really implying was, “Where are the Jews?” Where are those who are accustomed to pray,“Give thanks to the Lord who is good, whose love endures forever!” (Ps 107:1; Ps 118:1); who chant, “With my whole being I sing endless praise to you. O Lord, my God, forever will I give you thanks” (Ps 30:13); who declare, “We thank you, God, we give thanks; we call upon your name, declare your wonderful deeds” (Ps 75:2). None returned. And the reason why it mattered so much to Jesus was not because he was a jealous, insecure egomaniac who wanted people to appreciate his generosity and enter into his debt. No, he wanted to give them all a far greater gift than curing them of their leprosy! He wanted to give them, through faith, the gift of salvation. He wanted to enter into a relationship with them that would lead them to the eternal cure of all physical and spiritual ills. And it was only the grateful Samaritan who received this gift. Jesus turned to the healed leper at his feet who was still thanking and glorifying God and said to him, “Stand up and go. Your faith has saved you!” Gratitude is essential to receive this gift of salvation through faith because it’s gratitude that opens us up to the Giver of salvation. God wants to give this gift to all but we need to be ready to receive it. In order for us to do so we have to appreciate it and all God is seeking to do. It was only the grateful Samaritan who had this genuine openness through gratitude.
• We have an even greater reason or gratitude than the men in the Gospel, because we’ve been healed by God of the spiritual leprosy of sin and reconciled to God and to each other. St. Paul writes to Titus and the Church of Crete in today’s first reading, “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deluded, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful ourselves and hating one another. But,” — and what a but this is! — “when the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because of his mercy, he saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.” How much we ought to be filled with this spirit of gratitude to God the Father for this kind and generous love, for this mercy, for this rebirth and renewal, for this justification by grace, for the inheritance of eternal life, for Jesus and the Holy Spirit! The second part of this passage is what the Church chooses for the epistle on Christmas Day at the Mass at dawn, as we celebrate how in the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, the “kindness and generous love of God our Savior appeared” in the flesh. Because that God-with-us and G0d-saves (the names “Emmanuel” and “Jesus” respectively) is still with us saving us, can we ever cease thanking God?
• The fact is, however, that many times we’re not grateful. Not only do we not give God thanks and praise at all times and in every circumstance but often we give the opposite: we complain. Rather than expressing gratitude for what we have, we murmur about what we don’t have. Rather than remembering all of the deeds of the Lord, we treat him with a spirit of “What have you done for me lately?” We can become like spiritually spoiled brats rather than grateful, trusting, loving children. And if Jesus could say of the healed Jewish lepers, “Where are the other nine?,” how much more could he say that about us Christians, who have received far more blessings in the new and eternal Covenant than our Jewish elder brothers and sisters in the old Covenant. Jesus could say, “Where are the other nine?” with regard to Sunday Mass, which is the greatest form of thanksgiving (as the Greek word Eucharist means). Jesus could say, “Where are the other nine?” with regard to the Sacrament of his Mercy that restores us to the way to salvation. Jesus could say, “Where are the other nine?” about Sacred Scripture, which bathes us in the cleansing, saving power of his word. Jesus could say, “Where are the other nine?” with regard to the Cross he gives us so as to help us go the way of the grain of wheat and bear fruit and to make us humble and small enough to enter through the eye of the needle into life. But often we don’t thank him as we should because we obsess about what we think we lack rather than are grateful for all that we have received. That’s why today’s Responsorial Psalm is so important. I think it points to one of the most important aspects in all Christian spirituality. We pray, “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.” That “want” means “lack.” With the Lord as our shepherd, we lack nothing; we have it all! If we really believe this, all of life changes. We begin to see that the things we don’t have in life really aren’t important because the Lord is our treasure and as long as we have him, we’re the richest and most blessed people on the planet. The Lord is the one who gives us repose, who leads us, who refreshes us, who guides us in right paths, who accompanies us in dark valleys, who gives us courage, who spreads the table before us, who anoints us, who makes it possible for us to dwell with him forever. Because of this truth of the Lord’s shepherding love and unending pastoral care, we should never cease thanking the Lord. Because it is his will to be with us in all circumstances, that’s why it’s his will for us in all circumstances to give thanks.
• Someone marked by a spirit of thanksgiving for the way the way the kindness and generous love of God the Savior appeared to her, to save her and renew her, to justify her by grace and make her an heir to eternal life is the saint we celebrate today, the first American officially raised to the heavenly rafters, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. She lived and worked for part of her life here in New York and is buried here in Washington Heights. We had our student retreat around her tomb a month ago yesterday. She was born in 1850 near the Italian city of Lodi. From her earliest days, she had a deep gratitude and love for the faith and a deep desire to spread it as a missionary. The youngest of 13 children, her family would read each night from the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith and her young heart became inflamed. She used to make paper boats, fill them with flowers symbolizing the flourishing life of missionaries, and float them down the river, hoping that they would reach China. After the death of both of her parents when she was 18, she applied to enter various religious communities —including those who ran the school from which she graduated — but was refused because her health was poor. Such communities were not truly grateful to have a future saint apply, but just saw her physical ailments. Eventually her parish priest, who appreciated her piety, zeal and organizational ability, asked her to help save a mismanaged orphanage. She assented and did all she could, forming around her a community of women to assist in the work of loving these orphans into the kingdom, but after three years of hard labor the charitable institution was not able to be resuscitated. But it was through that grain of wheat’s falling to the ground that Frances’ life-long aspiration was able to be fulfilled. Her bishop summoned her and said, “I know you want to be a missionary. Now is the time. I don’t know any institute of missionary sisters, so found one yourself.” And with the group of seven women who had collaborated with her at the orphanage, she did: the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, erected to seek the Christian education of girls. It was suggested to her by many that her new community should head to the United States to work among the Italian immigrants. In the 1880s, there were 50,000 Italians in New York City alone, but fewer the 1,200 had ever been to a Mass or learned the elements of Christian doctrine. They didn’t know how to make the Sign of the Cross. Ten of the 12 priests working among them had been kicked out of their Italian dioceses for problems. Archbishop Corrigan of New York wrote her a formal letter asking her assistance, but at first she wouldn’t hear of it. She had set her heart on evangelizing China. But one night she had a powerful dream that induced her to consult Pope Leo XIII himself. The holy and wise pontiff, after hearing of the dream and her discernment, told her, in words that would change the history of Catholicism in America, “Not to the East, but to the West.” With six of her sisters, she set off for New York in 1889.
• When they arrived, a poor, humbling and ungrateful reception awaited them. They had been asked initially to organize an Italian orphanage and elementary school, but during their voyage, the benefactress underwriting the institutions had reneged on her commitments. There was no place for them or the orphans to live and no building for them to hold classes. Archbishop Corrigan told Mother Cabrini it was probably best for her and her sisters to return to Italy. Despite her disappointment at the chaos she found in New York, this tiny, strongly-accented Lombardian replied with a determination that ever after impressed the prelate, “No. The pope sent me here, and here I must stay.” From that point forward, Mother took some matters into her own hands. She went to see the benefactress to persuade her to change her mind, brought about her reconciliation with the archbishop, founded a house for the sisters and successfully began the orphanage. She started to receive vocations to her community almost immediately and that allowed her community’s apostolate to spread far and wide. She soon opened up a hospital in New York and several institutions in New Orleans, where the integration of Italians was going particularly poorly. Requests for her help were coming from all over the world, and she traveled with sisters to open up homes, schools, hospitals and orphanages in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, France and England. She also founded institutions in most American cities where there was a heavy concentration of Italian immigrants. By 1907, when the constitutions of her community were finally approved, there were more than a thousand sisters working in over fifty institutions in eight countries. She died ten years later at the age of 67 while visiting her community in Chicago and in 1946, she became the first American citizen to be canonized a saint. Her future canonization had been foretold by Pope Leo XIII fifty years before when, asked about her, he replied, “Mother Cabrini is a woman of fine understanding and great holiness. She is a saint.” Mother Cabrini’s zeal for the faith and her sanctity were seen in her willingness to put out into the deep waters and lower her nets for a catch for Christ all over the globe. As a little girl, she had fallen into a river and almost drowned. Despite her fear of water from that point forward, she spent much of her adult life aboard ship sailing across rough seas — 30 cross Atlantic trips — or over rivers to open schools for the fish she and her community would catch in those nets. She models for us the courage and creativity needed to see and spread the faith and bring people to receive the gift of salvation by faith. We give particular thanks for her today.
• The greatest way we learn to become people of Thanksgiving is through praying the Mass aright. The Greek word for Eucharist means Thanksgiving, and this is the great prayer of Thanskgiving that we pray together with Christ to the Father. I’ve always been struck by the words of consecration. “At the time he was betrayed, … Jesus took bread, and giving thanks … said, ‘… This is my body … given…  for you.’” “In a similar way, when supper was ended, he took the chalice and once more giving thanks, gave it to his disciples, saying, … ‘This is the chalice of my blood.’” Jesus was able to give thanks even on the eve of his crucifixion! Jesus was able to give thanks for the opportunity to offer his body and blood for us and our salvation! If he can give thanks in these circumstances, then we can not only learn from him in the Mass, but receive his very help, so that we, too, may give the Father thanks always and everywhere. That is our blessed duty and our salvation.

The readings for today’s Mass were: