Gratitude is one of the things I need to work on during Lent. I do not show it enough, particularly for the things I have received from God. Ingratitude (or at least insufficient gratitude) for God’s gifts tend to keep Him from giving more.
This excerpt from the Second Reading for today’s Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours is from a Sermon by Saint Gregory Nazianzen: “Let us show each other God’s generosity”
Recognise to whom you owe the fact that you exist, that you breathe, that you understand, that you are wise, and, above all, that you know God and hope for the kingdom of heaven and the vision of glory, now darkly as in a mirror but then with greater fullness and purity. You have been made a son of God, co-heir with Christ. Where did you get all this, and from whom?
Let me turn to what is of less importance: the visible world around us. What benefactor has enabled you to look out upon the beauty of the sky, the sun in its course, the circle of the moon, the countless number of stars, with the harmony and order that are theirs, like the music of a harp? Who has blessed you with rain, with the art of husbandry, with different kinds of food, with the arts, with houses, with laws, with states, with a life of humanity and culture, with friendship and the easy familiarity of kinship?
Who has given you dominion over animals, those that are tame and those that provide you with food? Who has made you lord and master of everything on earth? In short, who has endowed you with all that makes man superior to all other living creatures?
Is it not God who asks you now in your turn to show yourself generous above all other creatures and for the sake of all other creatures? Because we have received from him so many wonderful gifts, will we not be ashamed to refuse him this one thing only, our generosity? Though he is God and Lord he is not afraid to be known as our Father. Shall we for our part repudiate those who are our kith and kin?
Courtesy: Universalis
We too often forget this, that everything we have comes from the Lord. We lose sight of this in the myriad complexities and sufferings of the day. When things go well, we credit ourselves; when the go bad, we blame or get angry with God.
Look around your life and try to see the good you have. Be thankful.
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