[ Image credit: Cleansing of the Ten Lepers from the Codex Aureus: Codex Aureus
Epternacensis]
The Practice of Gratitude
For the seeker on the Direct Path it is essential to learn how to awaken and sustain gratitude, for
gratitude is the key to many of the highest, most noble, and most transformatory sacred
emotions. A heart tuned constantly to be grateful comes to revere the Divine in the whole of
existence and slowly to recognize the unity of the Presence behind all diverse appearances. A
heart trained always to be grateful will also grow more and more humble; it will be fearless in its
recognition of how everything it loves, needs, and celebrates streams in a never-ending river of
grace from God.
-Andrew Harvey, The Direct Path
I have seen the sun break through
To illuminate a small field for a while,
And gone my way and forgotten it
But that was the pearl of great price,
The one field that had the treasure in it.
I realize now that I must give all that I have to possess it.
Life is not hurrying on to a receding future,
Nor hankering after an imagined past.
It is turning aside like Moses
To the miracle of a lit bush,
To a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once,
But is the eternity that awaits you.
- R.S.Thomas 1913-2000
There is a French Marian legend about a storyteller who gives up his fickle life and enters a
monastery. But the life of the monks remains strange to him; he knows neither how to recite nor
chant a prayer. He pours out his lament to the Virgin Mary and she tells him to serve God with
what he can do, namely to dance and leap. From that moment on, he skips the divine offices and
dances during those times. He is called to the abbot and believes that he is about to be expelled.
But the abbot only says, “With your dancing you have glorified God with body and soul. but may
God forgive us all those lofty words that pass our lips without coming from the heart.”
-Dorothee Soelle, The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns
denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house
into a home, a stranger into a friend.
-Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go: A Meditation Book and Journal for Daily
Reflection
The Divine Beloved longs to play joyously and rest peacefully within the heart of the
consecrated lover.
-Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa 1836-1886. Great Swan: Meetings with Ramakrishna, Lex
Hixon
The root of joy is gratefulness… It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us
joyful.
-Brother David Stendl-Rast OSB
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