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Thanks

Thank You

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.


Gratitude is the awareness that we have received more than that to which we are entitled, remembrance of the person who has given it to us, and expression of appreciation to that person.

We have all had the experience of really wanting something, receiving it as a gift from someone, and rejoicing more in the thing itself than the giver–forgetting all too soon the giver’s thoughtfulness and generosity.

Lasting gratitude appears as a rare virtue. In today’s gospel, only one of the cleansed lepers–given a truly amazing, life-changing gift–returns to give thanks. The others might have been appreciative for a moment, but they have soon forgotten the giver, and perhaps the fact that their new, healed condition is a gift.

St. Paul points out one of the key effects of permanent, ongoing gratitude. In recognizing that the redemption we have experienced is a free gift from a Giver, and not some achievement of our own, we are able to treat others–including those not living the Christian life–with respect and esteem. We recognize in them that their worth is defined, not by any defect we may perceive in them, but by how God cherishes them, in His great desire to give them the gift He has given to us.

When we clearly perceive God’s intense, unmerited, and unconditional love for us, and are grateful for it, we can see how He loves others in the same way, and learn to treat them accordingly.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus for the gift of persistent, undimming gratitude for His gifts. Ask Him to send His Holy Spirit to give you the same love for sinners–that is, all humans–that He has. Ask Him to fill you with esteem for every fellow person on earth that corresponds to the unconditional intensity with which He loves every person.

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The Secret of Mary’s Power and Glory

Blessed Virgin Mary Murillo

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.


Why did God give Mary gifts so far above every other creature? She is the one human person besides Jesus Christ who is present both soul and body in Heaven.

Was it simply to crown the gifts He had already given her? She had received exemption from original sin at conception, and the inestimable gift of becoming the Ark of the New Covenant, with her body carrying God in the flesh, the pledge of God’s reconciliation with man.

Certainly, the Assumption was gift upon gift, but there is something in between one gift and another: Mary’s “yes.” There is no doubt that this “yes” (“I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to your word”) led God, as it were, to fall madly in love with her and whipped up His zeal to make of her the pinnacle of all creation.

Besides the fact that Mary’s “yes” was constant, at the visit of the angel, through the horror of the cross, and with the birth of the Church at Pentecost after Christ’s Resurrection, Mary’s “yes” was grandly special in another way. We find evidence in her words in today’s Gospel. If we could imitate this particular quality of her “yes” consistently, there is no reason to believe that we would not be equally pleasing to God, and give Him the same sort of channel for His love that she gave Him.

This quality, so clearly seen in her words today, is overwhelming awareness of and gratitude for His tender, powerful, and personal action in her life, along with the certainty of His tender, powerful, and personal care for the future. And this focus of hers never changed, even as she watched her own Son die on the cross in front of her, even as she tirelessly supported the Apostles in the foundation of the early Church.

In addition to allowing for special gifts like her Assumption, this fullness of gratitude and trust that characterized Mary’s “yes,” her gift of self to God, won for Mary a limitless power to walk souls through the door into Heaven–the door that Christ has opened for them with His death and Resurrection.

Mary didn’t and doesn’t still today win souls for God through public preaching and subtle argumentation. With her life, she won the power to bring great grace of conversion to souls through the gift of her own freedom in gratitude and trust, minute by minute, to God. And that power is still seen today as she continues to intervene directly in the lives even of hardened sinners and despairing souls and draw them back to her Son.

The secret to effectiveness for the Kingdom of God lies not in conjuring up and executing the most daring, ambitious, and compelling plan of evangelization. The secret lies in the gift Mary gave, which is the currency of the economy of salvation, the currency that buys compelling divine grace for souls. The secret lies in the open-hearted gift of self to God, in limitless gratitude and trust in all circumstances.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Him if He aspires for your greatness in eternity to be similar to Mary’s. Explain to Him your weakness, the sins you struggle so hard to get over, and ask Him if these are destined to be an inevitable impediment to your giving your heart to Him–or, if He is able to overcome them with His grace if you request it of Him. Ask Him what it takes to have a heart as full-to-bursting with gratitude and trust as Mary’s.

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