Gratitude is the seedbed of joy. — Peter Kreeft
Tom contemplates what is meant by “A Eucharistic Life”:
We could say, then, that a Eucharistic life is a life of thanksgiving, of blessing God, of humble gratitude for everything and everyone; a life free of complaint, of claims of privilege, of accepting what other people give us as no more than our due.
This reminds me of what Thomas Dubay wrote in regards to reasons to pray in Prayer Primer: Igniting the Fire Within:
If noble people feel an inner necessity to thank a stranger for holding the door open, surely we should feel the need to thank our Origin and our Destiny profusely “always and everywhere” (Eph 5:20)…
Which ties nicely into what Henri Nouwen wrote:
Gratitude…goes beyond the “mine” and “thine” and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.