Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

Thanksgiving is liberating. It frees us from at least two crippling stances. First, from the tendency to feel that we're victims; and, secondly, from a self-centered view of reality. Clearly, the two are related: apart from genuinely being a victim, the victim, by desiring to be so called, has found another way of putting him or her self at the center of everything. Gratitude has to be worked at; it seems easier for us to center everything around the self. Thanksgiving, such as forms the heart of the Eucharist (“Taking the bread and giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them” Luke 22:19) is the expansive alternative that sees all as gift, centers life around Another.

What we offer God in the Eucharist, bread and wine, are God's gifts to us, symbols of all God has given, before they ever become our gifts. Paradoxically, it is just some loss like that of a family member or close friend that often inspires us to recognize life as a gift. Such losses teach us to treasure life with thanksgiving. When all is said and done, we are better off choosing thanksgiving over the alternative, resentment and self-pity. Is thanksgiving itself perhaps a gift that we need to ask for, for which we should pray?

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

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