You don’t see many real lepers these days. Treatment with sulfite-based medications in the 60’s, and now antibiotics such as dapsone, rifampicin, and clofazimine allow for the cure of Hansen’s disease, as leprosy is more properly known. Today, the disease and the stigma that accompanied it are almost completely unknown…almost.
Believe it or not, the United States still has a leper colony located at Kalaupapa on the Island of Moloka’i in Hawaii. Of the 8000 people that were forcibly sent there beginning in 1865, six of the 16 surviving patients still remain. The youngest is 79 year-old Clarence “Boogie” Kahilihiwa. Boogie was diagnosed with Hansen’s disease at the age of 18. He was taken from his family, and sent to Kalaupapa in 1959. While other former residents have gone to live on the mainland or elsewhere, Boogie and five of his fellow patients have chosen to stay. Kalaupapa is the only real home they have known.
I met Boogie a few years ago when I went to Kalaupapa at the invitation of Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu. In the course of our visit, I stopped by the only library and bookstore of the town. Boogie was standing by the counter greeting people as they came by. He was a very jovial fellow. Still, the disease had not left him untouched. He was bald as an egg, his hands were affected by the disease, and one of his feet was in a modified boot. He had a voice of pure gravel that emerged from a radiant smile. When he saw me, his eyes lit up and he said, “Hey are you a priest?!”
“You bet!” I replied.
“Say, could I get a blessing from you?”
“Sure,” I said. Then I said the priestly blessing over him, planting my hand firmly on his bowed forehead as I finished. He dutifully made the Sign of the Cross and then vigorously shook my hand. “No loss of strength there,” I thought, as my knuckles cried out for mercy.
“Hey, thanks a lot, Father!” he said. “Thanks for coming.”
When I think back on my encounter with Boogie, I am struck by his final words of gratitude more than anything else. Here is a man who by the standards of the world, has every right to be bitter and resentful. Instead, he radiated a spirit of joy and gratitude. Other residents shared with us that one of the things we needed to tell people was the essential role that the Church played in their lives on Kalaupapa. It could have been a dismal place, but instead their faith gave them dignity and hope. They chose to be grateful.
There is a lesson to be learned here. The intentional disciple is intentionally grateful. The grateful heart cannot be bitter or resentful, even in what might otherwise be the worst of circumstances. Such is the power of the Gospel.
So how to you get there?
Gratitude just doesn’t happen
Rather, it has its origins in a more seminal virtue, namely
HUMILITY.
You don’t get to be grateful without first being humble.
So, what is humility anyway?
I have found that humility is simply this: to know yourself without illusion before Almighty God.
That means acknowledging without apology, everything about you that is right and true and beautiful and just.
At the same time, it also means acknowledging all that is broken and self-centered and sinful, without sugar-coating it.
Thus understood, we can begin to understand the primary temptation against authentic humility.
The first temptation is to downplay our gifts with pointless and dishonest self-denigration or a misdirected interior sense of worthlessness. Few people have spoken more eloquently about this than Marianne Williamson in her book, Return to Love (Harper and Collins, 1992). She says:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.”
Amazing insight, isn’t it? Marianne Williamson. A Return to Love.
The second temptation is like the first, namely a kind of smug presumption on the mercy of God characterized by a lack of honesty about the seriousness and the impact of our sins on others. We might say things to ourselves like, “Well, I’m only human.” or “It really wasn’t all that bad.” or “Well, nobody really got hurt.”
How does this temptation work? A short story helps illustrate this dynamic.
The devil was speaking with his demons about how they might be able to misdirect more souls from grace. The first demon spoke up and said, “I know, Boss, let’s try to convince people that there is no heaven! That way they will lose all sense of hope and turn away from virtue.”
The devil replied, “No, that will not work. There will always be people who believe in heaven, try as we might we cannot snuff out hope completely. What else have you got?
The second demon spoke up, “I know, Boss, how about we try to convince them that there is no hell? That way they will think there are no consequences for their actions, and we can steal a few souls that way.”
The devil replied, “Better, but still not enough. Sinful actions have immediate and eternal consequences. Some will still repent. We need to do better. What else have you got?”
The third demon thought for a moment and
then said,
“I know, Boss, let’s convince them that there is a heaven and there is a
hell…but not yet!”
“Ahhh…” the devil replied, “Now we are getting somewhere.”
If we are truly honest with ourselves, we come to realize that our sins really are that bad, they do have consequences and yes people get hurt. There is an immediacy to our need for confession and reconciliation. St. Paul tells us as much when he says, “if one part of the body is hurting, all the other parts feels its effects.” (1Cor 12:26) There is no such thing as a private sin.
But when we come honestly, humbly before Our Lord, the miracle of faith is this: Christ looks at each of us and says, “Yes, I know everything about you that is right and true and beautiful and just, because I put that there when I created you.
And yes, I know all of your sins…ALL of them. (Yes, even that one.) because it was for them that I died on the Cross, Rejoice. You are forgiven. You are free.”
My dear friends in Christ, when we understand what we have been given, when we understand what we have be FORgiven, what response is appropriate? What response is even possible, save gratitude?
Meister Ekhard, the great medieval mystic once said, “If you only prayer that you can muster is ‘Thank You,’ it is enough.
Did you know that the word Eucharist come from the Greek word, “ευχαριστία” which means “Thanksgiving?”
Therefore, in this sacred assembly, let us give thanks to the Lord Our God, for it is so very right and just. It is here that we are gathered; it is here that we proclaim the Word; it is there that we break the bread; and it is from here that we are sent into the world to proclaim the Good News with grateful hearts, founded on an authentic humility.
The grateful heart cannot be contained. You were not made for mediocrity. Our parish is not made for mediocrity. You were made to be a great saint! Please, please, please. Do not settle for anything less.