There is perhaps no greater benefit to mental health than gratitude. Grateful people are different. They are more joyful, for gratitude is a form of joy. They are more generous, kind, patient, forgiving, confident, and trusting.
Gratitude is a discipline of the mind wherein we commit to counting our blessings every day and expressing thanks to God. Our blessings are countless and our burdens, though real, are far fewer and of a passing nature. Consider the following meditation from St. Gregory of Nazianzen:
What benefactor has enabled you to look out upon the beauty of the sky, the sun in its course, the circle of the moon, the countless number of stars, with the harmony and order that are theirs, like the music of a harp? Who has blessed you with rain, with the art of husbandry, with different kinds of food, with the arts, with houses, with laws, with states, with a life of humanity and culture, with friendship and the easy familiarity of kinship?
Who has given you dominion over animals, those that are tame and those that provide you with food? Who has made you lord and master of everything on earth? In short, who has endowed you with all that makes man superior to all other living creatures? (Oratio 14, De Pauperum amore, 23-25)
Indeed, it is God who gives all this and so much more, things seen and unseen, known and unknown.
Our flesh is wired for negativity and looks about warily for threats. But we are not debtors to the flesh to live according to its promptings (Romans 8:12). Thus, in obedience to our spirit, we must cultivate gratitude rooted in wonder and awe at what God has done and continues to do for us. If we do not, we easily become fearful and stingy; our mental and emotional health quickly deteriorates.
When was the last time you really counted your blessings? When was the last time you looked about in wonder and awe and just sighed, saying, “Thank you, Lord; you have done so much for me that I cannot tell it all”?
Cross-posted at the Catholic Standard: Gratitude is More than an Attitude – It is a Discipline