I have written many times on this movement in the perfection series. Just use the labels below. However, this morning, I want to note that the understanding can lead one to more gratitude in one's life.
This process is found in the Psalms of David. David remembers the goodness of the Lord and thinks of all the graces he has received. Then, he understands Who God Is and who he, one of God's beloved creatures, is.
Understanding is the beginning of gratitude. The praises in the Psalms can reflect our gratitude as well. We think of the good things the Lord has done for us and we embrace great thankfulness.
Thanking God for graces becomes part of meditation. It is also part of the Dark Night of the Soul, when God reveals Himself as He really is. The smallness of the human condition and the reality of the fact that we must rely on God alone and not ourselves comes from gratitude. In other words, real humility, bubbling forth from the truth of who we are makes us grateful.
What does one will? This process leads to love. The grateful heart is one which loves God first. Willing love means following God's Will and not one's own. Willing equals the regime of prayer, fasting, worship. and charity.
Memory, understanding and will demand reflection. A half-hour of Scripture reading, one's Lectio Divina, is all that is necessary.
Psalm 8
Unto the end, for the presses: a psalm of David.
2 O Lord our Lord, how admirable is thy name in the whole earth! For thy magnificence is elevated above the heavens.
3 Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise, because of thy enemies, that thou mayst destroy the enemy and the avenger.
4 For I will behold thy heavens, the works of thy fingers: the moon and the stars which thou hast founded.
5 What is man that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him?
6 Thou hast made him a little less than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour:
7 And hast set him over the works of thy hands.
8 Thou hast subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen: moreover the beasts also of the fields.
9 The birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea, that pass through the paths of the sea.
10 O Lord our Lord, how admirable is thy name in all the earth