Got Gratitude? It Does a Body Good!

My Thanksgiving cactus bloomed abundantly at Thanksgiving. It continued to bloom at Christmas. The show continued in celebration of Easter and there is no sign that it is giving up yet. New blossoms continue to form. This has never happened before and I've had this plant for at least a decade. This morning I was reflecting on why I am being so blessed with continuous blooms and I decided that the Lord is giving me a metaphor through this gorgeous cactus.

It's all about gratitude!

Cicero called gratitude the "parent of all virtues." St. Paul told his Thessalonian flock, "In all things give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you all."

Really? Give thanks in ALL things, even our sufferings and persecutions?

Every morning I pray the Morning Offering. "O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer You all my prayers, works, joys, and SUFFERINGS of this day...." I rarely stop to reflect on that word, but sometimes it has special meaning. 

No one escapes sufferings in this "valley of tears." It's endemic to the human condition. Some seasons seem to be nothing but suffering! And yet God allows it and often seems in no hurry to relieve it. 

Think of poor Joseph. Thrown into the cistern by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused of molesting Potiphar's wife, thrown into prison, forgotten for two years by the ungrateful cup bearer whose dream he interpreted. And what was the outcome of all that suffering? He became the second most powerful man in Egypt after Pharoah and was enabled to become the savior of his own people and all the starving people in surrounding lands. 

Was Joseph thanking God as he plodded through the desert on the road to Egypt? Was he thanking God in slavery? There is certainly no indication in Scripture that he ever abandoned his faith and hope. He served faithfully in Potiphar's household and, even in jail, he became the trusted manager of the other prisoners. And in the end he was reunited to his father for the last seventeen years of Jacob's life when he brought his family down to Egypt. And he never held the crime of his brothers against them. He forgave them from the heart and rejoiced at the reunion with them!

Glory be to God!

Who knows what beautiful blossoms will form from our gratitude. How can we not praise God in all circumstances when we know He is able to bring good out of evil!

Our most graphic illustration of that remains the Passion and Resurrection that brought so much good out of Adam's "glorious fault that gave us such a Savior." 

Every day when I look at my Thanksgiving plant I will remind myself that today's sufferings have a purpose. If I remain faithful to God, He will crown them with a glorious resurrection. 

Maybe you are sitting on a spiritual dung heap with Job. Maybe you are afflicted with the sores of illness or depression or rejection by friends. What an opportunity to enter the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the wound in His side! 

Let me remember to be grateful, Lord, for ALL things: "prayers, works, joys, and sufferings." Remind me that NOTHING.... NOTHING....can separate me from Your love. 

Tiny blooms continue to form on my Thanksgiving cactus to remind me never to abandon gratitude -- to let it grow and bloom in abundance in my heart. And may that gratitude be the parent to grow all the other virtues until I can say with confidence and with St. Paul, "I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me." [Galatians 2:20]

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in You!