Father Richard Rohr reminds us that when we receive everything as a gift, we can live gratefully, allowing the energies of life and love to flow through us for the benefit of the whole.
In Philippians 4:6–7, Paul sums up an entire theology of prayer practice in very concise form: “Pray with gratitude, and the peace of Christ, which is bigger than knowledge or understanding, will guard both your mind and your heart in Christ Jesus.” From that place we stop making distinctions based on our personal preferences and judgments. Only a pre-existent attitude of gratitude, a deliberate choice of love over fear, a desire to be positive instead of negative, will allow us to live in the spacious place Paul describes as “the peace of Christ.” [1]
All the truly great persons I have ever met are characterized by what I would call radical humility and gratitude. They are deeply convinced that they are drawing from another source; they are instruments. Their genius is not their own; it is borrowed. We are moons, not suns, except in our ability to pass on the light. Our life is not our own; yet, at some level, enlightened people know that their life has been given to them as a sacred trust. They live in gratitude and confidence, and they try to let the flow continue through them. They know that “love is repaid by love alone,” as both St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thérèse of Lisieux have said. [2]
It is important that we ask, seek, and knock to keep ourselves in right relationship with life itself. Life is a gift, totally given to us without cost, every day of it, and every part of it. A daily and chosen attitude of gratitude will keep our hands open to expect that life, allow that life, and receive that life at ever-deeper levels of satisfaction—but never to think we deserve it. Those who live with such open and humble hands receive life’s “gifts, full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over into their lap” (Luke 6:38). In my experience, if we are not radically grateful every day, resentment always takes over. Moreover, to ask for “our daily bread” is to recognize that it is already being given. Not to ask is to take our own efforts, needs, and goals—and ourselves—far too seriously. [3]
In the end, it is not our own doing, or grace would not be grace. It is God’s gift, not a reward for work well done. It is nothing for us to be boastful about. We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus. All we can do is be what God’s Spirit makes us to be, and be thankful to God for the riches God has bestowed on us. Humility, gratitude, and loving service to others are probably the most appropriate responses we can make. [4]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, A Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations (CAC Publishing, 2016), 281.
[2] Rohr, Spring Within Us, 134.
[3] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, rev. ed. (Franciscan Media, 2021), 61.
[4] Adapted from Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos, The Great Themes of Scripture: New Testament (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1988), 96–97.
Image credit and inspiration: Debby Hudson, untitled (detail), 2018, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. The silhouette of the person with hands open to the sky visually embodies gratitude as a recognition of life’s gift, showing how grace flows inward and outward, connecting self, community, and the divine.
Story from Our Community:
I’m 63 but feel like a school kid as I read and absorb the wisdom in the CAC’s Daily Meditations. I am especially drawn to the spiritual beauty and truth of paradox, in particular, the message that I need to die to my small self in order to live into this next stage of life in full freedom and in pursuit of the Self that seeks to know and do the will of God. Thank you for filling my inbox and heart with a daily message I need. I hear God speaking to me through your works.
—Bud B.
