David Steindl-Rast: The importance of cultivating gratefulness

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“The interdependence of gratefulness is truly mutual. The receiver of the gift depends on the giver. Obviously so. But the circle of gratefulness is incomplete until the giver of the gift becomes the receiver: a receiver of thanks. When we give thanks, we give something greater than the gift we received, whatever it was. The greatest gift one can give is thanksgiving. In giving gifts, we give what we can spare, but in giving thanks we give ourselves. One who says ‘Thank you’ to another really says, ‘We belong together.’ Giver and thanksgiver belong together. The bond that unites them frees them from alienation. Does our society suffer from so much alienation because we fail to cultivate gratefulness?”

David Steindl-Rast in Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: An Approach to Life in Fullness (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1984) 17.