On few subjects do the saints speak with a voice as unanimous as on gratitude. From Saint Paul to Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, from the desert hermit to the country curé, from the 4th-century Greek bishop to the Carmelite of Lisieux, they all speak the same language: everything is gift, ingratitude is the hidden root of evil, and the summit of the Christian life is an act of thanks. The most sacred word of their vocabulary says it plainly enough — the Mass, the center of their days, is called the Eucharist, that is, "thanksgiving"[1].
This article is not a how-to: it gathers the saints' own voice on gratitude, their strongest sayings, in the order in which they lived. It is a florilegium — a gallery of witnesses. For the practical means of making this virtue grow (remembering blessings, living the Mass as thanksgiving, the morning thank-you, giving thanks in trial), see How to Grow in Gratitude; for the misconceptions to avoid, see Frequent Errors Concerning Gratitude.
One thing strikes at once: these men and women do not comment on gratitude from the outside, as a topic of moral theology. They breathe it. Their word carries weight because it was first a life — often a life crossed by poverty, sickness, persecution, or interior night, and yet turned entirely toward thanks. It is this existence-tested voice that we listen to here.
Why listen to the saints on gratitude?
A virtue they first lived
Theology classifies thankfulness among the "annexed" virtues of justice: Saint Thomas Aquinas devotes two entire questions of the Summa Theologiae to it, one on gratitude, the other on ingratitude[2]. But before being a treatise article, gratitude is for the saints an experience. They do not teach an attitude they find pleasant: they describe what happened to them. Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus would say she had verified it — "I have experienced it; try it and you will see"[3]. That is why their word on this point carries authority: it is attested by their very holiness.
"Eucharist": the word that sums up their life
To understand the saints' insistence, we must remember that the center of their day already bore this name. The Catechism stresses it:
"Thanksgiving characterizes the prayer of the Church which, in celebrating the Eucharist, reveals and becomes more fully what she is." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2637[4]
The very name "Eucharist" comes from the Greek eucharistein, "to give thanks," which points back to the Jewish blessings proclaiming the works of God[5]. The saints therefore invented no theme: they unfolded what the Mass made them live every morning. Their whole spirituality holds in this movement — receiving from God, and saying thank you to him.
The thread running through twenty centuries
The other reason to listen to the saints is their convergence. On many disputed questions, the doctors debate; on gratitude, they agree across centuries and schools. The Coptic desert hermit, the priest of Antioch who became Archbishop of Constantinople, the Cistercian abbot, the Dominican theologian, the Jesuit founder, the Curé of Ars, the Norman Carmelite all say at bottom the same thing. This unanimity is no coincidence: it is the echo of a single Gospel word received and handed on from generation to generation.
| Saint / witness | Century | Watchword on gratitude |
|---|---|---|
| Saint Paul | 1st | "Give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Th 5:18) |
| Saint Anthony the Great | 3rd–4th | Thanking God even for the bitter remedies of providence |
| Saint Basil the Great | 4th | An entire homily showing we can "give thanks in all things" |
| Saint John Chrysostom | 4th | "Glory to God for all things" (even in exile) |
| Saint Augustine | 4th–5th | "What have you that you did not receive?": all is grace |
| Saint Bernard | 12th | Ingratitude, a "burning wind" that dries up grace |
| Saint Thomas Aquinas | 13th | Thankfulness, daughter of justice toward God |
| Saint Francis of Assisi | 13th | "Praised be you, my Lord" for every creature |
| Saint Ignatius of Loyola | 16th | Ingratitude, "the most abominable of sins" |
| Saint Teresa of Avila | 16th | "Whoever possesses God lacks nothing" |
| The holy Curé of Ars | 19th | Not being miserly toward a lavish God |
| Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus | 19th | Jesus asks only for "abandonment and gratitude" |
| Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity | 20th | Becoming "a praise of glory" |
The source: gratitude in Scripture, school of the saints
Before being the doctrine of the saints, gratitude is the very breathing of the Bible — and that is where they all learned it. The saints only carry on a score received.
The Magnificat, canticle of the grateful creature
The finished model of thanksgiving is the Virgin Mary herself. At the Visitation, before Elizabeth, she does not speak of herself: she gives thanks.
"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name!" — Gospel according to Saint Luke 1:46-49 (the Magnificat)[6]
The Church takes up this canticle every evening at Vespers: the evening prayer of the Church is a thank-you. Mary is thus, in the tradition of the saints, the most grateful of creatures — she whose soul is wholly thankfulness because she received everything and usurped nothing.
The psalms of thanksgiving
Scripture gave the saints their vocabulary of gratitude in the psalms. The "great Hallel" hammers a refrain the monks still repeat:
"O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever!" — Psalm 136 (135), 1[7]
This psalter teaches a gratitude that does not depend on circumstances: we give thanks for what God is — good, faithful, merciful — before thanking him for what he gives. The Catechism precisely distinguishes thanksgiving (for what God does) from praise (for what he is)[8].
"And the nine others, where are they?"
The Gospel episode the saints cite most when speaking of ingratitude is the healing of the ten lepers. Ten are cleansed; only one returns.
"Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan." — Gospel according to Saint Luke 17:15-16[9]
Christ's question rings out like a reproach addressed to every age: "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?"[10]. The saints read in it the image of a humanity showered with blessings yet forgetful of the Giver — and the call to be, themselves, the tenth who returns.
Saint Paul, the apostle of thanksgiving
The first of the saints to make gratitude a theme is Saint Paul, who often uses the verb "to give thanks." At the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians, he makes it one of the three pillars of Christian life, and — uniquely — he presents it explicitly as the will of God:
"Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." — First Letter to the Thessalonians 5:16-18[11]
Paul does not say "give thanks when all goes well," but "in all circumstances" — he who had himself already suffered for the Gospel at Philippi[12]. To the Ephesians, he asks to give thanks "always and for everything"[13]; to the Colossians, that every Christian act be done "giving thanks to God the Father through him"[14]; to the Philippians, that every prayer be made "with thanksgiving"[15]. And he grounds it all on a question that disarms pride:
"What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?" — First Letter to the Corinthians 4:7[16]
The Fathers and the first witnesses
Saint Anthony the Great: thanking the physician for the bitter remedy
The father of monks, Saint Anthony the Great (c. 251–356), hermit of the Egyptian desert, left in the Philokalia one of the strongest images of gratitude in trial. He compares the hardships of providence to the unpleasant remedies of a good physician:
"It would be out of place to thank for bodily health the physicians who prescribe bitter and unpleasant remedies, while refusing God gratitude for things that seem painful to us, without knowing that all happens as it should, and for our advantage, through the care of providence." — Saint Anthony the Great, Philokalia of the Neptic Fathers[17]
The saints' gratitude therefore does not wait for the trial to pass: it gives thanks within the trial, because it trusts the Physician.
Saint Basil the Great: an entire homily on thanksgiving
The Cappadocian Saint Basil the Great (329–379), Bishop of Caesarea and Doctor of the Church, is among the first to have made Paul's exhortation a treatise in its own right. His Fourth Homily, devoted entirely to thanksgiving, starts from the same verse of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians quoted above, to show that it is genuinely possible, and not a mere ideal, to live in continual thankfulness:
"Rejoice always, he [the Apostle] says, pray constantly, give thanks to God in all things." — Saint Basil the Great, Homily IV, On Thanksgiving[18]
Basil does not merely quote Paul: he argues, against the common-sense objection that one could not give thanks amid trials, that contemplating eternal goods makes this continual thanksgiving practicable even in temporal misfortune. It is the same conviction that animates, a little later, the formula of his contemporary John Chrysostom.
Saint John Chrysostom: "Glory to God for all things"
The Archbishop of Constantinople Saint John Chrysostom (c. 349–407), the "Golden Mouth," died in exile, worn out by a long forced march under escort. Tradition, recorded by his biographer Palladius, reports that his last words were an act of thanks:
"Glory to God for all things!" (Δόξα τῷ Θεῷ πάντων ἕνεκεν) — Saint John Chrysostom, last words, c. 407[19]
That the greatest preacher of Eastern Christianity sealed his persecuted life with a "Glory to God for all things" — including for the exile and injustice suffered — sums up better than any treatise what the saints mean by gratitude. This formula has remained, in Eastern Christianity, the summit of thanksgiving.
Saint Augustine: "What have you that you did not receive?"
Saint Augustine (354–430), Bishop of Hippo and Doctor of grace, built his whole theology around the idea that nothing good in us comes from ourselves alone. Against Pelagius, who made salvation a conquest of the will, Augustine tirelessly opposes Saint Paul's question — "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor 4:7) — which he makes the decisive weapon against all spiritual pride[20]. To recognize that all is gift is already to give thanks; to refuse to recognize it is the root of ingratitude. In Augustine, gratitude is therefore not a feeling added to faith: it is faith's very truth, since to believe is to confess that we have received everything.
The great doctors of the Middle Ages
Saint Bernard: ingratitude, that "burning wind"
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), Cistercian abbot and Doctor of the Church, gave the most striking definition of ingratitude of the Middle Ages, in his Sermons on the Song of Songs:
"Ingratitude is a burning wind that dries up for itself the fountain of goodness, the dew of mercy, the streams of grace." — Saint Bernard, Sermon LI on the Song of Songs[21]
The image is physical: the ungrateful man does not punish God, he dries himself up. By closing the hand that receives, he exhausts the springs for himself. Conversely, gratitude keeps the soul open and watered. Bernard thus makes thankfulness not a supplement of politeness, but a matter of spiritual life or death.
Saint Thomas Aquinas: thankfulness, daughter of justice
Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the "Angelic Doctor," gives gratitude its exact place in the edifice of the virtues. In the Summa Theologiae, he treats thankfulness (gratitudo) as a virtue annexed to justice: rendering to the benefactor the honor due to him[22]. Toward men, this debt can be discharged; toward God, it never will be, for we owe him even our capacity to thank him. Christian gratitude is therefore a justice that knows it can never "repay in kind" — and that is precisely what makes it boundless. Thomas symmetrically ranks ingratitude among the vices opposed to justice: a refusal to acknowledge a real debt.
Saint Francis of Assisi: "Praised be you, my Lord"
Saint Francis of Assisi (c. 1181–1226) turned gratitude into a cosmic song. Sick, nearly blind, toward the end of his life, he composed the Canticle of the Creatures — one of the oldest texts of Italian literature — in which every element of the world becomes a motive for thanksgiving:
"Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun… Praised be you, my Lord, for Sister our Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us." — Saint Francis of Assisi, Canticle of Brother Sun, c. 1225[23]
In Francis, nothing is neutral: the sun, the water, the fire, the earth, down to "Sister Bodily Death," everything is received from a Father and everything returns to him in praise. Gratitude is no longer only a duty toward God: it is a way of looking at the whole universe as gift.
The masters of the classical age
Saint Ignatius of Loyola: "the most abominable of sins"
Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), founder of the Society of Jesus, gave the most radical diagnosis of ingratitude in modern spirituality. In a 1542 letter to his companion Simão Rodrigues, he writes:
"Ingratitude is the most abominable of sins […] the forgetfulness of graces, blessings, and gifts received, and, as such, the cause, the beginning, and the origin of all sins and of all evils." — Saint Ignatius of Loyola, letter to Simão Rodrigues, Rome, 18 March 1542[24]
Ignatius does not say ingratitude is one sin among others: he sees in it the root of all the others. Forgetting the Giver is the first step toward taking oneself for the source of one's own goods. That is why, in the Spiritual Exercises, he wants the examination of conscience to begin not with the confession of faults but with thanksgiving: "to give thanks to God our Lord for the benefits received"[25].
Saint Teresa of Avila: "whoever possesses God lacks nothing"
Saint Teresa of Jesus (1515–1582), reformer of Carmel and Doctor of the Church, left on a bookmark in her breviary the poem "Nada te turbe", which has become one of the summits of trusting gratitude — a thankfulness resting, through every trial, on the single fact of possessing God:
"Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you: all things pass away, God never changes; patience obtains all things; whoever possesses God lacks nothing: God alone suffices." — Saint Teresa of Avila, "Nada te turbe", quoted in the Catechism § 227[26]
Teresian gratitude is not the inventory of blessings received, but the peace of one who knows that, God being given, nothing more is lacking. "God alone suffices": thanksgiving brought back to its hearth.
Saint John-Marie Vianney: not being miserly toward a lavish God
The holy Curé of Ars, John-Marie Vianney (1786–1859), patron of parish priests, translates the same doctrine into the plain language of the country pulpit. Before a God who gave himself to the very end, he holds ingratitude to be a senseless miserliness:
"What ingratitude it would be to show oneself miserly toward a God who shows himself so lavish! Did he not give all his blood for us on the cross? Does he not give himself to us entirely in the Holy Eucharist?" — Saint John-Marie Vianney, Thoughts[27]
The holy Curé traces gratitude back to its decisive motive: the Cross and the Eucharist. Measured against a God who gives all his blood, the slightest reserve of the heart becomes a crying ingratitude.
The holy women of modern times
Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus: "abandonment and gratitude"
Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873–1897), Carmelite of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church, made gratitude one of the two pillars of her "little way." In her letter 196 to her sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, she sums up her whole path:
"Jesus does not ask for great deeds, but only abandonment and gratitude." — Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Letter 196[28]
For Thérèse, gratitude is not an optional feeling: it is, with abandonment, what God expects first from little souls. Her sister Céline reported a saying that shows its fruitfulness — a true spiritual law of the multiplication of graces:
"What draws the most graces from the good God is gratitude; for if we thank him for one blessing, he is touched and hastens to give us ten more, and if we thank him again with the same outpouring, what an incalculable multiplication of graces! […] I have experienced it; try it and you will see." — Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, saying reported in Counsels and Memories[29]
Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity: becoming "a praise of glory"
Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880–1906), Carmelite of Dijon, carried gratitude to its furthest point: no longer merely giving thanks, but becoming thanksgiving. Taking up Saint Paul's expression — to be "to the praise of his glory" (Eph 1:12)[30] — she made it the program of her whole life:
"A praise of glory is a being always in thanksgiving. Each of its acts, of its movements, each of its thoughts, of its aspirations […] are as an echo of the eternal Sanctus." — Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, Complete Works[31]
It is the culmination of the whole tradition: gratitude, begun as a momentary thank-you, ends in a permanent state in which the entire soul is but a continual act of thanks, a prelude to the canticle of Heaven.
Two recent mystical voices: Gabrielle Bossis and Mother Yvonne-Aimée
Beside the great doctors, recent spiritual tradition offers humbler but converging voices. In He and I, approved and widely circulated writings, Gabrielle Bossis (1874–1950) reports this interior word of Christ on morning gratitude:
"Thank God for this day that begins; you can gain so many merits, so much glory… in one day… I allow you to serve Me, to love Me." — Jesus to Gabrielle Bossis, He and I[32]
And Mother Yvonne-Aimée of Malestroit (1901–1951), Augustinian, Servant of God, carries gratitude to a point only saints reach: thanking God for her own non-culpable weaknesses, because they are matter for humility:
"If I were humble, I would never cease thanking God instead of sometimes grieving over those kinds of faults or defects that are not offenses against God, but good matter for being humbled before others." — Mother Yvonne-Aimée of Malestroit, Spiritual Writings[33]
The furthest point: giving thanks in trial and for one's own miseries
What sets the saints' gratitude apart from mere human thankfulness is that it does not stop at pleasant blessings. It goes so far as to give thanks where nature would complain.
Job: "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away"
The Old Testament model the saints invoke here is Job, stripped of everything in a single day:
"The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!" — Book of Job 1:21[34]
Job blesses God not despite the loss, but in the very heart of the loss. It is gratitude carried to incandescence: acknowledging the Giver even when he seems to take back.
Giving thanks for one's own faults
More surprising still is what tradition calls gratitude for one's own miseries. We saw it in Mother Yvonne-Aimée; Blessed Frederick Ozanam (1813–1853), founder of the Conferences of Saint Vincent de Paul, went in the same direction: the humble man thanks God even amid his non-culpable faults, because they keep him in the truth of his littleness[35]. This paradoxical peak has nothing morbid about it: it presupposes such trust that even our limits become an occasion for thanksgiving.
Gratitude before the Cross
The summit remains gratitude before the Cross — not as a taste for suffering, but as wonder before a love that goes so far as to die. Christ himself gives thanks before the miracle, at the tomb of Lazarus: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me"[36], inaugurating anticipated gratitude, the kind that thanks in advance out of pure trust. The saints contemplate in the Passion the ultimate reason for all thanksgiving: if God gave even his Son, the heart has no reason left to close itself.
What do they say, at bottom? The converging lessons of the saints
Rereading these voices, four teachings return like a ground bass.
Ingratitude is the hidden root of all evils
This is the point on which agreement is clearest. For Ignatius, ingratitude is "the cause, the beginning, and the origin of all sins"[37]; for Bernard, "a burning wind" that exhausts grace[38]. The tradition of the Divine Will says it again in kindred language: "Pride is the most terrible ingratitude toward God"[39]. All see in forgetfulness of the Giver the first spiritual tipping point.
All is gift: gratitude is born of humility
The second lesson is that one cannot be thankful while believing oneself an owner. Gratitude presupposes the humility of recognizing that "what have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor 4:7)[40] — the great question taken up by Augustine against pride[41]. That is why the saints always link thankfulness and humility: the first cannot stand without the second. To go further on this root, see How to Grow in Humility.
From thankfulness flows the multiplication of graces
Third lesson, more encouraging: gratitude is not only a duty, it is fruitful. The spiritual law stated by Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus — God, "touched" by our thank-you, "hastens to give us ten more"[42] — echoes the Gospel word: "You received without paying, give without pay"[43]. Giving thanks opens the hand to receive still more.
Giving thanks leads to eternal praise
Fourth lesson: gratitude is an apprenticeship for Heaven. It begins with thanks for sensible blessings, passes through thanksgiving "in all circumstances," and ends in disinterested praise — the kind that thanks God no longer for what he gives, but for what he is[44]. Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity called this end "a praise of glory"[45], "an echo of the eternal Sanctus": already on earth, the beginning of Heaven.
Gratitude in the Divine Will
The spirituality of the Divine Will — what Jesus said to Luisa, Servant of God (1865–1947), in her writings — extends this tradition by carrying it to its extreme: the soul that no longer merely does God's will but lives in his Will, united to the Fiat, that word by which God creates, transforms each of its acts into continual thanksgiving, joining in the thanks Christ eternally renders to the Father. Conversely, pride is denounced there as "the most terrible ingratitude toward God"[46]. This gratitude lived in the divine Will is less an emotion than a state — that of the creature returned into the order of love, where all is received and all is given back.
For further reading
- How to Grow in Gratitude — the practical version: nature, degrees, concrete means, and pitfalls to avoid.
- Frequent Errors Concerning Gratitude — the misconceptions to avoid about Christian thankfulness.
- How to Grow in Humility — the humble root from which all thankfulness springs.
- How to Grow in Eucharistic Adoration — thanksgiving lived before the Blessed Sacrament.
- How to Grow in Trust — trusting gratitude that thanks in advance.
Notes and References
Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1328. The name "Eucharist" comes from the Greek eucharistein (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24) and eulogein, which point back to the Jewish blessings (berakah) proclaiming the works of God. English renderings after the official French edition, Mame/Plon, 1992.
1 5Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 106 (De gratitudine — thankfulness) and q. 107 (ingratitude). Thankfulness is treated there as a virtue "annexed" to justice: rendering to the benefactor the honor due to him. Reference edition: Summa Theologiae, Éditions du Cerf.
2 22Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873–1897), saying reported by her sister, Sister Geneviève (Céline Martin), Counsels and Memories, Éditions du Cerf (1st ed. 1952). Collection of memories noted by Céline, novice of Thérèse, sometimes during the saint's lifetime. Usual quotation: "What draws the most graces from the good God is gratitude […] I have experienced it; try it and you will see." English rendering after the French text.
3 29 42Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2637: "Thanksgiving characterizes the prayer of the Church which, in celebrating the Eucharist, reveals and becomes more fully what she is."
4Gospel according to Saint Luke 1:46-49 (the Magnificat), English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF). Mary's canticle at the Visitation, daily prayer of the Church at Vespers; the finished model of thanksgiving.
6Psalm 136 (135), 1, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF): "O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever." Refrain of the "great Hallel," the very type of the psalm of thanksgiving.
7Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2639. Distinction between thanksgiving (for what God does) and praise (for what he is).
8 44Gospel according to Saint Luke 17:15-16, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF). The healing of the ten lepers; only the Samaritan returns to give thanks.
9Gospel according to Saint Luke 17:17-19, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF). "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? […] Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well."
10First Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians 5:16-18, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF). Founding triad: joy, prayer, thanksgiving, presented as "the will of God."
11First Letter to the Thessalonians 2:2: Paul recalls the sufferings and outrages endured at Philippi before evangelizing Thessalonica (cf. Acts 16:22-24; 18:1-5). He writes as a tested apostle, in the course of his mission — not as a prisoner.
12Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians 5:20, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF). Thanksgiving "always and for everything" as the mark of life in the Spirit.
13Letter of Saint Paul to the Colossians 3:17, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF). Every Christian act is to be done "giving thanks to God the Father through him."
14Letter of Saint Paul to the Philippians 4:6, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF): "In every circumstance, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God."
15First Letter to the Corinthians 4:7, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF): "What have you that you did not receive?" — scriptural foundation of gratitude as recognition of gift.
16 40Saint Anthony the Great (c. 251–356), Philokalia of the Neptic Fathers, éd. du Cerf, 2019, vol. A1, no. 2, p. 44. English rendering after the French text. Comparison of providence's trials to the physician's bitter remedies: refusing God gratitude in hardship would be as absurd as refusing to thank the physician for an unpleasant remedy.
17Saint Basil of Caesarea (329–379), Homily IV, On Thanksgiving (Homilia de gratiarum actione), Greek text Patrologia Graeca 31, 217-237; French trans. in Homélies, discours et lettres choisis de saint Basile le Grand, trans. Abbé Auger, Guyot, Lyon, 1927, pp. 130-145. The homily develops 1 Th 5:16-18 to show that it is possible to give thanks "in all things," including in trial.
18Saint John Chrysostom (c. 349–407), last words before his death in exile at Comana in Pontus (407), reported by his biographer Palladius of Helenopolis, Dialogue on the Life of Saint John Chrysostom. Traditional Greek form: Δόξα τῷ Θεῷ πάντων ἕνεκεν — "Glory to God for all things." The formula has remained in Eastern Christianity a summit of thanksgiving.
19Saint Augustine (354–430), De gratia et libero arbitrio and the anti-Pelagian controversy; Augustine constantly takes up 1 Cor 4:7 ("What have you that you did not receive?") as the decisive argument against Pelagius's pride, grounding gratitude in the recognition that every good is God's gift. Cf. also the Confessions, whose whole work is structured as thanksgiving addressed to God.
20 41Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon LI. Latin text: "Ingratitudo ventus urens, siccans sibi fontem pietatis, rorem misericordiæ, fluenta gratiæ." English rendering after the French trans. in the Œuvres complètes de saint Bernard, trans. A.-L. Charpentier, Librairie Vivès, 1867, vol. 4, p. 396.
21 38Saint Francis of Assisi (c. 1181–1226), Canticle of Brother Sun (or Canticle of the Creatures), composed in Umbrian c. 1225, one of the oldest poetic texts in the Italian language. Full text in the Franciscan Sources; quoted by Pope Francis as epigraph to the encyclical Laudato si' (2015).
23Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), letter to Simão Rodrigues, Rome, 18 March 1542: "Ingratitude is the most abominable of sins […] the forgetfulness of graces, blessings, and gifts received, and, as such, the cause, the beginning, and the origin of all sins and of all evils." English rendering after the French text. Text preserved in the Ignatian correspondence (cf. Letters of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Georgetown / Woodstock).
24 37Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, no. 43: the particular examen begins with "giving thanks to God our Lord for the benefits received." Reference edition: Exercices spirituels, trans. É. Gueydan, DDB.
25Saint Teresa of Jesus (of Avila) (1515–1582), poem "Nada te turbe," quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 227: "Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you: all things pass away, God never changes; patience obtains all things; whoever possesses God lacks nothing: God alone suffices." English rendering after the French text.
26Saint John-Marie Vianney (1786–1859), the holy Curé of Ars, Pensées, éd. Artège, 2015, p. 18. English rendering after the French text. The miserliness of the heart toward a God "lavish" unto the Cross and the Eucharist is denounced as ingratitude.
27Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873–1897), Letter 196 (LT 196) to her sister Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, September 1896 (close to Manuscript B): "Jesus does not ask for great deeds, but only abandonment and gratitude." Cf. Correspondance générale and Œuvres complètes, éd. du Cerf / DDB.
28Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians 1:12, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF): to be "to the praise of his glory" (in laudem gloriae eius). Expression of which Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity made the program of her whole spiritual life.
30Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880–1906), Carmelite of Dijon, Œuvres complètes, éd. du Cerf, 1979-1980, p. 126. Taking up the Pauline expression laudem gloriae (Eph 1:12): the soul become "praise of glory" is "always in thanksgiving."
31 45Jesus to Gabrielle Bossis (1874–1950), Lui et moi. Entretiens spirituels, Beauchesne, vol. 1, 1948, no. 240, p. 67. Approved and widely circulated writings. Giving thanks from the morning for the day received. English rendering after the French text.
32Mother Yvonne-Aimée of Malestroit (1901–1951), Augustinian, Servant of God (cause for beatification introduced in 1959), Écrits spirituels, éd. François-Xavier de Guibert, 2011, p. 96. Thanking God for her own non-culpable faults, as matter for humility. English rendering after the French text.
33Book of Job 1:21, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF). Job's thanksgiving stripped of everything: "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!"
34Blessed Frederick Ozanam (1813–1853), founder of the Conferences of Saint Vincent de Paul, saying quoted in Joseph Tissot, L'Art d'utiliser ses fautes, Le Laurier, 1991, p. 26: the humble man thanks God instead of grieving over his non-culpable faults, which are matter for humility. English rendering after the French text.
35Gospel according to Saint John 11:41, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF). At the tomb of Lazarus, Christ gives thanks before the miracle: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me." Foundation of anticipated gratitude.
36The Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865–1947), The Book of Heaven, vol. 1, éditions Résiac, 2015, p. 21: "Pride is the most terrible ingratitude toward God." Pride — brother of ingratitude — is designated there as the supreme affront to the Giver. English rendering after the French text.
39 46Gospel according to Saint Matthew 10:8, English rendering after the official liturgical translation (AELF): "You received without paying, give without pay" — gratuitousness received calls for gratuitousness given.
43