A Discipline for Gratitude:

We gather to thank God for all we’ve received

Karen Rood

Thanksgiving 2020 will feel different for many of us. Because of the pandemic, we have been separated from our loved ones for much of this year. We have also been separated from our church family. We have been separated from the Eucharist. But now, more than ever, we are called to develop grateful hearts and practice a discipline of gratitude in our lives, for just as we didn’t do anything to cause the separation, we also don’t do anything to earn the precious gifts of love, family and, most of all, the Eucharist. My arms have ached to hold my grandchildren these last months. I cannot travel to see my children. I have been able to visit with my 88-year- old dad, but have not been able to hug him for fear that I will pass any unknown sick- ness on to him. A discipline of gratitude calls me to be thankful for their presence in my life rather than focus on the desolation I am feeling. My heart is grateful for sweet baby smiles, phone calls and distance visits. I imagine how our Blessed Mother must have felt as she watched Jesus grow and fulfill his ministry, realizing that our loved ones are not “ours” but precious gifts from God, and that our time with them cannot be taken for granted.

I miss my church family. I miss the meetings and the gatherings. I miss the full assemblies joined together to worship on Sunday. We have been forced to be apart for so long, and my heart is grateful to be returning. A discipline of gratitude has me looking at each person as if seeing them for the first time. I see them as my brother or sister in Christ, as “confreres” in a world that needs us to love one another as God loves us. I am reminded that the early Church shared everything in common, dividing among all according to each one’s need. (Acts 2:44-45) In a society that teaches us to “get ahead,” even at the expense of others, a discipline of gratitude teaches me that nothing is “mine.” Everything is a gift from God to be shared. My special- ties, my time, my earnings are all gifts to be shared with others. And my church family is my support group in this, for we all work together in this aim. God has given us many gifts, but none so great as the gift of the Eucharist. The word Eucharist comes from the Greek meaning “thanksgiving.” In the celebration of the Eucharist we come together to offer praise and thanks to our God — primarily for the gift of salvation through God’s Son, but also for all that God has done for us. And we do this through Christ who is our Redeemer and Lord, who offers praise and thanks on our behalf. Jesus is the supreme gift, freely given and never earned.

For those of us who have been separated from the Eucharist during the pandemic, the freely given Body of Christ shared among the (re)united body of Christ is the ultimate Thanksgiving! If we see gratitude as a discipline that can be learned, the celebration of the Eucharist is where we learn to give thanks. Coming together to express gratitude to God for the gift of Jesus, we will grow in our aware- ness of all God’s gifts. All we have been through this last year calls us to celebrate Thanksgiving 2020 with a properly ordered sense of what thanksgiving truly means: everything as a gift freely given and never earned, meant to be shared. God’s generosity and love knows no bounds. A discipline of gratitude causes me to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, and I celebrate this with joy!

Karen Rood is director of worship/ liturgy for the Catholic Diocese of Lexington.