It’s easy to say “thank you” . . . at least sometimes.
When our hearts are delighted, as at a wedding of a dear friend or family member, or when we receive unexpected and unsolicited help or generosity from a friend or from a stranger, the words “thank you” could not come more easily.
But what about unwelcome news, ill treatment, bad times? How do we react when the up and coming generation forswears marriage, when funerals outnumber weddings in churches across the United States? What about when our friends and even our family members spurn us, shun us, insult us, be it for our lifestyle or our politics or even our faith? How should we react to those?
When we witness—or suffer ourselves—injustice, malice, deceit, betrayal, or any of the human failings so well documented in the electronic devices to which we all are enslaved, our first reaction—mine, in any case—is not gratitude. “Thank you” is not something I say when the moral mire of our age disturbs my peace.
But when I look to Scripture to support my indignation, instead I find St. Paul scolding me. It’s not the moral mire that’s the problem, Paul says (though it certainly is a problem). No, the problem is my ingratitude.
Gratitude is an ongoing theme for the apostle to the Gentiles. “Rejoice always,” he exhorts us in First Thessalonians—“pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (5:17-18). Lest we doubt Paul’s credibility, remember that this is a man who endured beatings, whippings, stonings, imprisonments, and shipwrecks (2 Cor. 11:23-28). How did he get to be so grateful?
We find out in his letter to the Romans. Here Paul provides an apologia for thanking God in bad times: “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (5:3-5).
We could grieve at the myriad opportunities out there to put Paul’s words to use. We hear of so many wounds to the Church, the bride of Christ, no small number of which are self-inflicted. I already mentioned some examples of the crisis in marriage, in marriages, in families. Nor does it end there. And it’s not that we should “rejoice in” these—we can never be grateful for evil. Rather, we must be grateful that God, in his infinite mercy, sees fit to take even our iniquity and work it to our good.
This is more than “count your blessings.” It’s a radical orientation toward prayer—perhaps new, perhaps hard to accept, but worth the effort.
Think of it this way: on this side of the veil, our prayers are divided into petition, contrition, thanksgiving, and praise. If you’re like me, you have trouble getting beyond petition! But when, God willing, we see the face of God, we will have no need of “please.” We won’t need “I’m sorry,” either—purgatory will take care of that. No, all our prayers will be thanksgiving and praise. “Thank you,” and “I love you.”
The book of Job describes a just man who loses everything. As his wealth, his possessions, his health, even his family fall into ruin, decay, and death, his friends exhort him to give up on the God who so clearly has forsaken him. Even his wife tempts him: “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God, and die” (2:9).
The good news is that Job keeps the Faith. He never forgets the one to whom he owes everything. But the bad news is that he complains along the way—complains quite a lot, actually, to the point that God comes and rebukes him directly. “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? . . . Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?” (40:2,9).
Don’t forget that Job is a just man! And yet here is how we can exceed him in virtue—with our gratitude. Every kind word, every pleasant feeling, is God’s gift, because God created our ears to hear and our bodies to feel. No matter our sorrows, we can remember that every breath we take is God’s gift. And even the man who convinces himself that he has nothing left to be thankful for can read Psalm 22—“my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, the psalm our Lord recited from the cross—and remember that God has prepared a city for such as him. That is the greatest gift of all, beyond all sensation, beyond all worldly goods: the chance to live forever in perfect happiness with our creator, a chance God gives freely, in love, as love, to everyone.
This, I think, is a good way to understand the words of Bl. Solanus Casey: “Gratitude is the first sign of a thinking rational creature.” G.K. Chesterton takes the same thought farther: “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” In other words, the perpetually grateful are the happiest people in the room. Why? No matter their aches and pains and earthly heartsickness, they are living in the presence of God.
We can be the perpetually grateful, the happiest people in the room, because we have something that Job lacked: a personal Savior, God incarnate, come to cleanse us of our sins and redeem us. We have a Church that has opened for us its abundant treasury of graces, consolations, and indulgences. We have the saints, our models for holy lives, to illuminate the path to heaven opened up for us despite our unworthiness. And so we can exceed Job in virtue, in gratitude, even in the darkest times—because no matter what befalls us, God has prepared for us a city, with a standing invitation from Jesus Christ.
Let’s be thankful, then—when things are easy, of course, but especially when they’re hard. The God who made us deserves nothing less—and we’ll be happier, too.