Cultivate Gratitude and Thanksgiving

     In the past on Thanksgiving Day, I would spontaneously journal pages naming people and events that filled my heart with a deep sense of gratitude and joy. My Benedictine family, my familial family, friends, happy celebrations and the goodness and beauty of the creation were all recorded in joyful detail. These are items which most folks include in their list of gratefulness.
     Recently in reading some excerpts of noted theologian Henri Nouwen's writings on gratitude, a whole new dimension of gratitude as a discipline to be cultivated on a daily basis reopened to me. A gratitude which involves praising God for all events in our lives including painful and adverse happenings, which have formed and shaped us into the beings we are today. Nouwen's teaching on this revolves around the fact that God's sanctifying grace is what gifts us, prunes us, and reshapes us to the point where we can say everything is grace. Without acceptance of this grace a daily basis and relying completely on it, we will never become truly fruitful and fulfilled members of the Body of Christ.

     Benedictine brother David Steindle-Rast is another author who has extensive writings and teaching on gratefulness as an attitude where we never take life for granted, always aware of God's grace working with us. The website, http://www.gratefulness.org has many added thoughts and suggestions on the attitude of gratitude.
     In conclusion: let us give thanks to the Lord of goodness for God is lasting love. Ps. 107.
                                                               Sr. Joan Gripshover, OSB