Bishop Anthony writes:

The epistles of St.Paul contain so many phrases connected with THANKS. Even when St. Paul was in prison, as he was when writing to Philemon, he says: I give thanks to my God at all times (the Epistle to Philemon, verse 4). “Always giving thanks – in everything.” How far is this a true description of our own state of mind and what does gratitude mean? It means to acknowledge an obligation. With every breath we should thank God who has drawn us out of nothing because every moment we receive back from God the precious gift of life; our very existence is an act of God’s unspeakable love for us and a cause for deep thanksgiving. Think of all God’s attributes – His power, His justice, His purity, His unending Love – then think of yourself as a grain of dust, as nothingness! That gives one a proper perspective of oneself! When we sin or resist God’s Will, it’s because we think we have rights of our own; all the modern, so-called “human rights” legislation allows man to think he is on a level with God and can do whatever he likes. Yet if we had a proper understanding of our own nothingness and of the all-greatness of our Creator we would struggle far harder to avoid sin. Every moment of our life is a fresh gift from God – yet we repay Him by further sin and by forgetting to thank Him!

All the saints have been full of thanks for what God has done for them and we also must make gratitude to God the first thing to come to our mind. At night we should run over the events of the day and thank God for all He has done for us: the danger he may have saved us from; some material gift or pleasure that has come to us, the happy company of friends, even good weather. We should thank God for having created us and for sustaining us – above all we should thank Him for loving us so much that if we knew how much we would literally die of the knowledge! And this great love is why Our Lord came to earth and redeemed us on the Cross. Do we thank God sufficiently for that? Have you thought every day this last week about Christ’s saving act of love in agony on Calvary – and offered deep thanks for it? If, in this month of St. Michael, an angel came to us and said that Jesus was coming to spend the day with us, how glad and excited we’d be! Yet do we forget that this is exactly what Jesus does do every time we receive Him devoutly in Holy Communion. He comes and resides in our very breast and heart – Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. Do we thank him enough for this great Gift? How long do we spend in thanksgiving after receiving Holy Communion? How often do you absent yourself from Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament when you know it is happening and could quite easily have made the effort to come? Benediction – the best way there is on earth to thank God for all his Love and all His benefits!

Remember that Our Lord, in His Sacred Humanity, is so very interested in all that we do, not just in our duties to Him, but in everything. It hurts Him when we forget to thank Him – or just forget Him! Remember the ten lepers and how hurt He was when only one returned to thank Him? Remember how glad He was at all that Saint Mary Magdalene did for him and how He said so at the Pharisee’s dinner party? If we love somebody, we can be so hurt if they seem to neglect us; think how very much more hurt God is when we neglect to give Him our daily thanks!