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Cardinal Basil Hume OSB |
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Gratitude |
| To say thank you is very human, and very lovely. Often we
show ourselves to be ungrateful or, perhaps more frequently, just by
negligence we fail to say thank you. Deep down it is pleasing to be
thanked, for it shows we are appreciated, it shows we are loved. On the
whole we do not find it easy to thank the people we dislike.
If gratitude is a lovely thing about ourselves, it would be almost unbelievable to think there is not gratitude in God. Of course we will be told that God does not need us. Of course we will be told that everything good comes from Him. Of course we will be told that He is in no way dependent on us. It is a nice, precise theology that argues that way. There is gratitude in God, there must be. What a joy it will be when we realise when we come to the end of our work that deep within us He says: "Thank you for serving me." A glimpse of that truth was given to us by Our Lord Himself: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Congratulations combined with words of thanks. |