“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” (Philippians 4:4).
I have been thinking about gratitude.
One of the most important things that I was taught as a child, and one of the most important things I try to teach my own children now that I am an adult, is GRATITUDE… Gratitude is the understanding that a person understand that they have been given something that they were perhaps not even entitled to. And this means that people who understand how to be grateful have the ability to be humble. Humble souls are souls who do not feel entitled to the blessings that they have received, and instead are souls who know that every blessing that they have received is given to them freely and not presented to them as though a slave were making a distribution to a master.
For me, this gratitude is foundational to all other virtues, because without gratitude to other humans, a soul could not possibly understand how to give thanks to God for all the fruition of His Holy Will!
And we have great examples of gratitude among the Saints. Over and again the Great Saints have experienced terrible suffering and have simultaneously expressed their gratitude to God for allowing them to experience such suffering for love of Him. Saint Therese of Lisieux died in her early twenties of tuberculosis and suffered greatly before her death. And she constantly gave thanks to God for the experience of that suffering as a mechanism to support her salvation and the salvation of others… And she was – of course – not the only Saint to have experienced such suffering. There was also Saint Faustina, who died of tuberculosis of the intestines after intense suffering, and Saint Bernadette Soubirous, who died to tuberculosis of the bones. These Saints too gave thanks to God for their suffering and were grateful for it.
But they are not the only souls who suffered and rejoiced…
Elijah, the prophet from the Old Testament, said that is soul REJOICED in the Lord. And he said this at a time when the Israelites were in exile due to the Babylonians. And to put that into perspective, being in exile means that people were forcibly removed from their homes, and families were separated, and livelihoods destroyed. And there – right there in the moment – when the people had most cause to despair, that was when Elijah REJOICED…
And he was not the only one… Saint Paul the Apostle also rejoiced! “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:4-7).
And Saint Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians while he was in PRISON, in danger of being executed (as he eventually was executed)… And still he REJOICED and called others to do the same…
And I have been reflecting on this today, because it seems to me that there is more to this than meets the eye. And it occurs to me today, that what this is really about is not WHERE I am, but WHO I am with.
You see those Prophets and Saints could rejoice because regardless of where they were – they remained in the presence of God… And today, I ask for the Grace to remember that. Because knowing that I remain in the Presence of my Beloved, I shall be able to REJOICE all the days of my life…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.