We need to be grateful

WE need to hone up our sense of gratitude. We need to be thankful because the most radical truth about us is that whatever we have is first of all something given to us by someone, something received, before we do anything about it. If only to be decent, the least thing we can do is to be grateful.

            St. Paul briefly and clearly expressed this truth this way: “What have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor 4,7) And he continued: “And if you have received, why do you glory as if you have not received it?” pointing to us the danger if we fail to acknowledge this fundamental truth.

            To be thankful is a necessity in our life. It is what puts us on the proper foundation, on the right track, and toward our true goal. It sustains and reinforces our relationship with everyone, from God down to the last creature on earth.

            It always generates good atmosphere around, facilitates friendship and harmony. It builds up a sense of unity and belongingness among ourselves, tearing away whatever walls we may unwittingly erect due to our unavoidable differences and conflicts of views and opinions.

            To take this necessity for granted or, worse, to be neglectful of it would plunge us into the road of self-centeredness, making us vulnerable to pride, vanity, envy, conceit and the like.

            We start to build our own fantasy world or our own bubble of a reality, even to the extent of invincible confidence of our own righteousness. We start to distance ourselves from other, until we alienate them from us completely.

            We need to be more conscious of cultivating and living this sense of gratitude. Given the fast pace of our life nowadays, we need to pursue this goal with deliberate effort, because even without malice we tend to forget it and to be easily distracted.

            We can ask ourselves, when was the last time we said “thank you” to someone, or better still, to God? Very often we are notorious for asking favors from others, and from God especially, and yet we are not as quick to say thanks.

            There are those who claim that to be thankful to others would lead them to be subordinated to these people in an improper way, or to tie them up unnecessarily to these people. They suspect it would make them vulnerable to be abused or exploited.

            For sure, there will always be some mistakes and imperfections in our pursuit to cultivate this sense of gratitude. But those mistakes and imperfections do not negate our need for it.

            What they do is to indicate where we can still improve and perfect our sense of gratitude. Saying thanks obviously has to be done with prudence too, with the right words and tone, and in the right time.

            But in this, I would prefer that we err more on the side of excess than of defect. If we have been excessive in this, we can easily see the bad effects and institute the proper rectification.

            The danger of being deficient in this regard is that we would not even know we have a problem in this area. The lack of gratitude or, worse, its absence, can be so blinding that we would not know what’s missing.

            Another thing about this need for gratitude is that we should also be thankful for everything that happens in our life, not only for the good things that come but also for the not so good things that we experience.

            Our sense of gratitude should not be shaped only along the lines of what we feel or understand. Rather, it has to be configured along the dictates of our faith, hope and charity. In other words, it should not just be naturally motivated.

            It has to be supernatural, with God’s grace, that would enable us to find reason to be thankful even in our disappointments, frustrations, problems, challenges, trials, failures, temptations.

            Echoing what St. Paul said to the Romans, we should be convinced that “To them that love God, all things work together unto good.” (8,28) Even our misfortunes in life have a purpose in God’s providence for us, and therefore we also need to be thankful for them.

            The story of Job, intensely tested by God, corroborates this point. He realized in the midst of his trials that he should accept not only the good but also the evil things in life, always clinging to God in all situations, and never departing from him.