Let Us Give Thanks

“We ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters, because your faith flourishes ever more, and the love of every one of you for one another grows ever greater.”

One of the reasons I love being Catholic is that we have the great gift and the great opportunity to be able to come to Mass every single day. Even eastern Catholics and the Orthodox, if they have married priests, can’t necessarily have Mass every day because of rules concerning conjugal abstinence before celebrating Mass. I don’t say that to their shame since it is a legitimate practice given in the tradition, but rather to highlight the great gift we have in the West, in Roman Catholicism. And today’s first reading highlights why I love this great gift.

One of the things you learn once you learn some basic biblical Greek is you start to listen for key phrases in English and replace them with the original Greek. Case in point, St. Paul says, “We ought to thank God always.” Every time I see “thank” or “give thanks” in the Bible, I always double check with the Greek to see what word it is…and sure enough, this one is “eucharist.” So, in Greek, the phrase is, “We ought to eucharist or do a eucharist to God always.” And we affirm this biblical principle at each and every Mass when the priest says at the Preface, “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks.”

And we do this for two reasons: One, so that our faith might grow. We exercise that muscle of faith by affirming each and every day that the bread we consume is the Body of Christ. We also exercise it by coming in humility, recognizing that everything we have is a gift from the Father, and our prayer is that we can imitate the Son, who showed His gratitude by giving the Father His very Self.

The second reason is that we might grow in love. Faith has to be alive, and the soul of faith is love. We grow in love not just in our charity for others and moral uprightness, but even in our sufferings. For just as the Cross is the greatest symbol of Christ’s love for us and the Father, so it is for our own suffering. And of course, we grow in love when we receive the Sacrament of Love itself in the Most Holy Eucharist.

That’s why it’s so important for us as Catholic Christians to develop an attitude of gratitude. Doing so conforms us to the Heart of Jesus; it makes us eucharistic people. So, thanks be to God for the grace of a daily Eucharist, of daily Mass. May we courageously offer the words of St. Josemaria Escriva: “Thank you, Jesus. Give us hearts to measure up to yours!” May we, in today’s eucharist, become eucharistic souls after the Heart of Jesus.