She is one of the most peaceful and gracious persons I know. I have rarely heard her complain in the long years I have known her. Sadly, as we do not live close to each other, I do not see her often, but let me describe this good, Catholic woman.
She is grateful for her entire life, including the time when she was far away from God. Her re-version to the Catholic Church began a life of gratitude.
She always praises God for all things, all the gifts in her life. She knows she has earned nothing. He has given all.
She never, never complains. She may state facts about her health, (which is not as good as one would like), just to let me know what is happening in her life, but she does not complain.
She never speaks negatively about anyone. If she must share something serious, it is always in an attitude of intercessory prayer. She does not spread gossip or negativity about anyone.
She never complains about the weather, the economy, and is positive about God working in our times, albeit through hardships.
Her attitude is one of complete gratitude to God for life, her children, her husband, her daily work.
She knows from where all good gifts come. And, she thanks God for all these.
Because of being out in the world shopping for food and other chores, I have overheard many conversations of very many unhappy people. I want to say to those who have lived in Iowa their entire lives, "Why complain about the weather? It has always been this way?"
I am convinced that complaining and a lack of gratitude come from pride-a person wants something to be or to go in a certain way, and if life does not meet the demands of that person, that person is not grateful.
We live in a time of trial, but we can even be grateful for that, as saints come out of tribulation.
St. Basil writes this:
What words can adequately describe God’s gifts? They are
so numerous that they defy enumeration. They are so great
that any one of them demands our total gratitude in
response.
Yet even though we cannot speak of it worthily, there is one gift which no
thoughtful man can pass over in silence. God fashioned man in his own image
and likeness; he gave him knowledge of himself; he endowed him with the ability
to think which raised him above all living creatures; he permitted him to delight in
the unimaginable beauties of paradise, and gave him dominion over everything
upon earth.
Then, when man was deceived by the serpent and fell into sin, which led to death
and to all the sufferings associated with death, God still did not forsake him. He
first gave man the law to help him; he set angels over him to guard him; he sent
the prophets to denounce vice and to teach virtue; he restrained man’s evil
impulses by warnings and roused his desire for virtue by promises. Frequently,
by way of warning, God showed him the respective ends of virtue and of vice in
the lives of other men. Moreover, when man continued in disobedience even
after he had done all this, God did not desert him.
No, we were not abandoned by the goodness of the Lord. Even the insult weoffered to our Benefactor by despising his gifts did not destroy his love for us. On
the contrary, although we were dead, our Lord Jesus Christ restored us to life
again, and in a way even more amazing than the fact itself, for his state was
divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God, but emptied himself to
assume the condition of a slave.
He bore our infirmities and endured our sorrows. He was wounded for our sake
so that by his wounds we might be healed. He redeemed us from the curse by
becoming a curse for our sake, and he submitted to the most ignominious death
in order to exalt us to the life of glory. Nor was he content merely to summon us
back from death to life; he also bestowed on us the dignity of his own divine
nature and prepared for us a place of eternal rest where there will be joy so
intense as to surpass all human imagination.
How, then, shall we repay the Lord for all his goodness to us? He is so good that
he asks no recompense except our love: that is the only payment he desires. To
confess my personal feelings, when I reflect on all these blessings I am
overcome by a kind of dread and numbness at the very possibility of ceasing to
love God and of bringing shame upon Christ because of my lack of recollection
and my preoccupation with trivialities.
