Heart to Heart Chat
† Heart to Heart Chat – November 26, 2023
As we have just completed our Thanksgiving Day celebration and at the verge of completing a liturgical year, I would love to look at our whole Christian life from the point of view of being grateful to everything happens in our daily life. I would go with St. Paul who encourages us to “render constant thanks,” because that is God’s will revealed to us in Christ Jesus ( 1Thessalonians 5:18).
As I reflected about a grateful heart, I found many spiritual benefits that spring from being grateful always. Gratitude trains our mind to think as God thinks. As we are surrounded by so many negative things of life, when we practice gratitude, we tend to see all the good things happening in our life. We teach our toddlers to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Do we practice this intentionally every day being thankful to God and others who are so good to us? When we practice gratitude, it brings contentment and peace. Discontent heart emerges out of ingratitude. While we are thankful, then we are closely connected trust in God’s ways and thus experience contentment and peace. Gratitude opens our eyes to see everything from God’s point of view. Our vision of life could easily be clouded by all our daily problems. That does not help us to look at everything as God would perceive. The power of gratitude transforms sadness and discouragement and converts it to encouragement. Thankfulness deepens our faith and to wait positively for the Lord to work in our life. If God has provided for all our needs today, will he not provide for tomorrow too? Can we just thank the Lord for all that we received today so that he can keep piling more blessings for us for tomorrow? Thus, being thankful builds our faith and opens our minds and spirits to great possibilities of the future. Gratitude helps to connect with God at a deeper level. Only when we are thankful to God, we praise Him spontaneously. A life of true worship can begin only from a grateful heart. Through a true worship, we connect with God in an intimate way. The power of gratitude leads us to our final destiny in God. God is our true end goal. When we desire to reach our final destiny, we can reach it only with a thankful heart. Let us practice this wonderful attitude of gratitude that we all can grow spiritually every day.
Your Brother in Christ,
Fr. Xavier Ilango