There are two worthwhile insights to be gleaned from today's readings. On one the readings praise and commend gratitude. The gesture of the grateful Samaritan is contrasted with his ungrateful companions who were also healed. Furthermore, Jesus suggests that gratitude is a rather scarce commodity. "Were not ten made clean? Where are the other nine, he asks?" Gratitude is a human disposition which has to be cultivated. He must train ourselves to recognise the blessings we have, to acknowledge the source of those blessings and to and to return thanks. This is every bit as important on the human level as on the religious level. Because ingratitude is a most unpleasant trait in an individual. It becomes unbearable within our family circle. Shakespeare recognised the pernicious powers of ingratitude. King Lear is emotionally stricken at the ingratitude of his own daughters and he is move to cry out his bitter lament: "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child."

Ingratitude within the family circle is particularly misplaced. Because anything we have, whatever talents or traits we are blessed with, all have their source in that unique family configuration we landed in initially. We are what we are because of the stable we came from. If we become aware of our talents and blessing, we will return to our families with a deep sense of gratitude. But ingratitude is rarely deliberate. Could you imagine a fellow getting out of bed in the morning and asking himself: What will I do today? "Sure, I might as well be ungrateful for the day!" Generally, that not the way we operate. Nine time out of ten, ingratitude has its source in thoughtlessness, in apathy, in taking people and things for granted. In all probability the healed lepers who failed to come back and give thanks were somewhere celebrating their restored condition.

But there is a second movement in today's readings that has far-reaching implications for the human understanding of God. Today's use of the two readings is very different to the usual pattern. It is usual to have the gospel reading amplifying what was set out in the Old Testament reading. Today, however, the gospel contradicts the old testament reading. Naaman, the foreign leper is cured of his illness because he follows the advice of the Jewish holy man; in gratitude for this great blessing he willingly accepts as his own the God of Israel. On a superficial level then the Old Testament story, and the gospel story that follows it, is a simple moralising tale about the debt of gratitude. In short, we should all count our blessings and give thanks to God for them.

But the stories operate more effectively at a much deeper level. They signal a shift in human consciousness, a change in the human perception of God. This change is seen most clearly when we compare the function of the foreigner in both readings. In the first reading, Naaman had to go back to his own home in a pagan land. He knew that the possibility of worshipping his new found God in a foreign land was remote. So he asked Elisha to allow him take a cargo of earth with him since, as he says, `your servant will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any god except the Lord.' The God of Israel could only be worshipped on Jewish soil, literally. If the foreigner wished to worship the God of Israel, then he had to carry the soil of Israel with him. The God of Israel, like his pagan counterparts, was geographically limited.

The gospel reading takes up this theme, not to amplify it, but to contradict it. As far as the Jewish people were concerned, their Samaritan neighbours were as foreign as you could get. Bad blood existed between both tribal groups from time immemorial. The gospels are riddled with instances demonstrating the low esteem in which the unfortunate Samaritans were held by the Jews. Yet, in this little gospel story of the healing of the ten lepers, the Samaritan is the only one to show gratitude. The concept of a God tied to one exclusive geographical location is roundly rejected. No race or nation can have a monopoly on the God revealed in Jesus Christ. He stands with all who, like the Samaritans, are despised or rejected. He is truly a universal God; access to him is gained not through an accident of birth but through faith and goodness. This God is in marked contrast to the landlocked God we read about in today's first reading.