An article on "gratitude" from St Cecilia's Abbey
GRATITUDE is an essential part of the Christian life. Christians, insist St Paul in his letters, should be the most grateful people in the world (Col 3:15; 2 Cor 9:14; Eph 2:12) because the Holy Spirit is given to them precisely so that we may know well what God has freely given us (Heb 12:25). They are to abound in thanksgiving because the graces that have received are likewise superabundant. Their worship, centred on the Eucharist, is grateful praise to God for all that he has given them. Of all the Biblical writers, St Paul is the one whose gratitude is the most frequent and most fervent. He has been called the apostle and theologian of thanksgiving. He gives thanks always (Rom 1:10), at all times (Col 1:3,0), night and day (1 Thess 3:10); it is something always expressed in the present tense for his gratitude is an on-going activity. The motive of all his apostolic work is that thanksgiving may overflow more and more to the glory of God (2 Cor 4:15).
Gratitude is the response to the freely offered gifts of God. For Philo, thanksgiving is the highest form of honour paid to God, the highest virtue, an effect produced by God in eh soul. In the Gloria of the Mass we say, “We give you thanks for your great glory.” “Gratitude and thanking,” writes Romano Guardini, “lift man above the functioning of a machine or the instinct of animals, are really the echo of something divine.” Gratitude recognizes that the world and our very being are abiding gifts to us, that everything is gift. It is part of the openness which comes with being a Christian. “To answer Christ’s call,” noted Pope John Paul II, “to open inwardly to others means always being prepared to find oneself at the receiving end of this call. By showing gratitude, I give to others even while I am accepting things from them. I cannot be closed and ungrateful. To accept Christ’s call to be open to others requires a fundamental change in the whole style of our life” (Rome, 4.4.79).
Only one of the ten lepers who were cured felt the need to return and thank the Lord. “Blessed is the soul,” St Bernard comments, “who every time he receives a gift of grace from God, returns to Him, to Him who responds to our gratitude for the favours we have received by giving us new favours. The greatest hindrance in the spiritual life is ingratitude, for God counts as lost the graces we receive without gratitude, and He refrains from giving us new graces.” St Benedict in his Rule (Chs 34;40) says that it is necessary to bless God at all times, and he detests the ingratitude that expresses itself in murmuring, mentioned 12 times in the Rule in 7 different chapters. The Biblical roots of murmuring are found in Exodus where Israel complained bitterly to the Lord and Moses for leading them into the desert. Their sin was ingratitude, to forget the blessings of liberation from slavery of Egypt. Likewise the monk who murmurs has usually lost sight of the blessings of his vocation, fails to recognize the grace God has lavished on him.
Jesus shows us that there is something in God which may be called grateful. He acknowledged the beauty of the woman’s gesture in anointing him (Lk 7:36-48); and no doubt the woman of Samaria who gave him water to drink and the hospitality of Martha. “Who knows – if we may speak in this way – what God feels when we do not merely perform our duty to Him, but give Him love, when our littleness strives to be generous towards Him? Someday He will show us how He received our gift, and that will be part of our blessedness” (Guardini).
Gratitude recognizes that we have nothing of our own. This is our position in relation to God: all that we have and are come from him, and in return for His infinite generosity we can do nothing but use our gifts to express our gratitude to Him. “Oh!” exclaims St Teresa, “how the very greatness of His favours condemns those who are ungrateful!” (Exc, 3). St Bernard agrees: “Ingratitude is the enemy of the soul, the destroyer of merit and virtue. It is a burning wind which dries up the fountain of piety, the dew of mercy, the torrent of grace.” Gratitude, on the contrary, draws down new graces, new gifts. What happens when we don’t feel grateful? C. S, Lewis asked himself this question in one of his letters: “It seems to be a mere word the moment one recognizes that one ought to be feeling it.” But he goes on to advise: “Act your gratitude and let feelings look after themselves.”
Gratitude implies that we have received something: the knowledge and reality of God’s Trinitarian nature, of his continual care for his children, of the incarnation and Redemption, of the Church and Sacraments as the instruments of God’s love. Gratitude is a response to a gift. “There can be no Catholicism without a sense of indebtedness,” wrote Von Balthazar. Gratitude manifests that we have received a gift and that we are living fully from the gift that has been made to us. The Heidelberg Catechism of 1563 expressed this beautifully by listing the Ten Commandments under the heading, “About Gratitude.” In other words, the Ten Commandments outline how Israel is to respond to her choice, her election, the covenant. Obedience to the law, obedience in the Church is based on gratitude to God’s marvellous goodness. Our Christian faith is not a religion of superhuman efforts or self-perfection; it consists rather in being conscious of the grace of God which precedes us and responding to it.
“Only he who gives thanks for little things receives big things. We prevent God from giving is the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience and love ;that has been given us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?”( Dietrich Bonhoeffer).
Sr MD