From the Abbot

Giving Thanks

I recently visited Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo., where a confrere was completing his summer pastoral experience. This gave me the opportunity to meet with his supervisors and “shadow” my confrere to understand his experience there. As I stood outside one patient’s room while this confrere was with her – a woman who had been in intensive care for a month – the patient’s husband came out to talk with me. He wanted to express his gratitude for all that this monk had done for them. He said he wanted to share his deep appreciation for the care he and his wife received in their faith.

Gratitude is the heart of our faith. It is the first step in our relationship with God. It is the font of the Eucharist and should be the font of all our prayer. When we sit down to pray, the first thing we should do is spend some moments thanking God. “Thank you, Lord, for my life, for my community, for the family that nurtured me, for the confrere who shared of himself, for the opportunity to spend myself, for all the gifts of creation and for your Son Jesus who has saved me.” There is no greater virtue that will create a stronger bond between others and our relationship with God than this virtue of gratitude. Our whole day is filled with acts of service and favors from those around us. It costs us very little to show our gratitude and it does so much good toward creating a stable and tranquil atmosphere, improving relationships, and making our own charity easier to practice. The root of this virtue is our own gratitude toward God.

Fundamentally, cultivating the spirit of gratitude requires of us a deep humility. We need to understand that everything we have and everything we are is a gift. And this begins with the very gift of life. When we stop and think about all for which we should be grateful, it can be overwhelming, but how can we not be in awe of all that we have been given, and how can we not be grateful?

This is the sense that St. Benedict is trying to instill in us as he reminds us to offer prayer before every good work. Opening up all that we do to the grace of God, that he might bless our endeavors, so as to provide us with a sense of gratitude for his work in our lives.

Non Not to us, Lord, not to us nobis, but to your name give glory because of your mercy and faithfulness Psalm 115:1 Domineabbatial motto of abbot thomas hartman fourth abbot of saint benedict’s abbey

G.K. Chesterton put it this way: “You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in ink.” Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus!

Equally important to this gratitude is the spirit of detachment in serving others. As disciples of Jesus and of St. Benedict, we are called to give ourselves unconditionally to the service and well-being of each other, and of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we are called to do so with complete detachment from any praise. We experience true gospel freedom when we serve with a spirit of total detachment. It might hurt when we don’t receive praises of gratitude for a kind deed; when our best efforts go unnoticed. We should strive to make sure that our intention is always unconditional – and this is tough – focusing only on what our action is doing to build up the Body of Christ as we seek our eternal reward. This is true Christianity, and this is true monasticism – that our lives are for the Other.

There is a price that comes with living for the other – so our standard must be the Cross of Jesus Christ. We may receive appreciation and thanks from those to whom we show acts of charity or whom we serve. When we serve with a spirit of gratitude and detachment we will know joy. The disappointments and adversities that others may cause, or we allow ourselves to be consumed by, will purify our interior motives and allow us to focus on what God truly has in store for us – life with him. We need to be filled always with gratitude for God’s unconditional love. We need to always thank those who serve us and love us with their generous lives. In the end it boils down to this: “Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name give glory because of your mercy and faithfulness” (Psalm 115:1).

In the spirit of St. Benedict,

Abbot James Albers