It’s a strange thing St Paul has asked us to do: pray with thanksgiving. He might mean that we’re always to remember to say thank you to God. That would make thanksgiving a certain way of praying alongside others. It’s more likely that the Apostle is saying we should offer thanks to God at the same time as when we ask him.
Saying please and thank you in the same prayer is novel. This appears to be a distinctly Christian way of praying to God.
There were ancient philosophers who recommended gratitude in adversity. A few centuries before Paul was Epicurus, who said: “We should take solace for misfortune in the happy memory of what has been, and in the knowledge that what has been cannot be undone” (Vatican Sayings, 55). The key insight is that thanksgiving tempers misery. We can relieve gloominess by thankfulness.
Modern philosophers also prescribe gratitude but uncouple it from misery. They commend the practices of keeping journals, writing thank you notes, and paying compliments in return. The benefits are associated with stress and pain relief. Such gratitude would make one over time more attentive in daily life: little things begin to matter more.
One academic psychologist suggested that the purpose of modern expressions of gratitude is twofold: to affirm goodness in one’s life, because we’re not all bad and things aren’t that bad, and to recognise that the source of goodness lies outside oneself. We’re not the origin of the good which is in our life; we might have received good things through our families, the natural world, and (he went on) also the spiritual realm.
St Paul would like that last point, that we recognise that goodness comes from the spiritual realm beyond us. We call him God. We shall hear in the Eucharistic Prayer how God bestows “on the world all that is good.”
Where Paul departs from ancient and modern philosophies of gratitude is that we include our petitions to God when we’re in gratitude. We continue to ask God for his gifts even when we are already thankfully in possession of them.
Ancients regarded gratitude as a disposition to appreciate what things are just in themselves. In the face of misadventure, gratitude lifts our mood. When times are tough, think on happier times, but what of our new needs?
Modern gratitude is a set of actions aligned with mindfulness, a worthy practice, which has us slow things down to take things in. But what of the origin and purpose of those good things?
Christian gratitude recognises a loving divine origin of all good things and therefore a way of jubilant hope of more good things to come.
So, we say please and thank you to God in the same prayer because God knows what we need before we ask, he wants to help us in our daily life like any good parent, and already has a way forward all mapped out. God even helped you to form the petition you made in prayer – God “bestows on the world all that is good”, including our good ideas about how he can help us.
Saying please and thank you to God in the same prayer is a splendid confession of his covenant with us. God has bound himself to us. Our good God will make good on his promises of good.
If you’re a bit like the ancient philosophers and good times come to mind when things are bad, ask God for more good things to come and thank him for all you’ve received.
If you’re a more modern philosopher and you keep a gratitude journal, its title is “To God”.
The Lord is near. He is coming soon at Christmas. He is always on his way to us. At Christmas, God gives his Son to us, the greatest of all gifts. God knows what we need before we ask, so say thank you for his wisdom as well as his gifts; he is ready to provide for us from his abundance, so gratefully ask him for all you need.
Our loving God wants your life to be full of the peace in which he dwells. There is no need to worry. The before, during, and after of this episode of your life is already known. Beyond all your needs and struggles is our loving, providing God.
Fr Paul Rowse, OP
Parish Priest
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