The Power of Gratitude

A grateful heart a garden is,
where there is always room
for every lovely, Godlike grace
to come to perfect bloom.
(hymn 3)

How empty are our conceptions of Deity! We admit theoretically that God is good, omnipotent, omnipresent, infinite, and then we try to give information to this infinite Mind. We plead for unmerited pardon and for a liberal outpouring of benefactions. Are we really grateful for the good already received? Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessings we have, and thus be fitted to receive more. Gratitude is much more than a verbal expression of thanks. Action expresses more gratitude than speech.

If we are ungrateful for Life, Truth, and Love, and yet return thanks to God for all blessings, we are insincere and incur the sharp censure our Master pronounces on hypocrites. In such a case, the only acceptable prayer is to put the finger on the lips and remember our blessings. While the heart is far from divine Truth and Love, we cannot conceal the ingratitude of barren lives.

Mary Baker Eddy (S&H p.3)

One of the least acknowledged spiritual qualities is gratitude. In our modern world we pay the price for goods received, because we have to do this. This is demanded. Unfortunately, in the process we loose sight of this vital quality of our humanity that connects us with the great heart of divine Love. We need to correct this loss of a divine quality in our lives. The human economy has drifted far away from the platform of the divine economy, but it really should pattern the divine.

The development of gratitude in our lives is evidently an element of our spiritual development that we cannot afford to neglect. In a metaphoric sense, it was really the lack of gratitude, above all else, that got Adam expelled from the Garden of Eden. Ingratitude and indifference are all too often blocking factors on the way to healing. If God is Love, how can we not acknowledge this love, reflected in ourselves in the form of gratitude? It appears that gratitude is our pathway to God.

Mary Baker Eddy commented on Mary Magdalene's affection for Christ Jesus in the house of the Pharisee. The rich host had provided no water for his guest to wash his feet, a sign of curtsey, but she had washed his feet with her tears, had dried them with her own hair, and anointed them with a fragrant and costly oil.  

Mary Baker Eddy writes under the heading,
"Gratitude and Humility"
"This is what is meant by seeking Truth, Christ, not "for the loaves and fishes," nor, like the Pharisee, with the arrogance of rank and display of scholarship, but like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of gratitude, with tears of repentance and with those hairs all numbered by the Father." (S&H 367)

I find it increasingly appropriate that Mary Baker Eddy's above statement on gratitude is located in the chapter, Christian Science Practice, which is coincident with the highest element on the foursquare matrix in the column of the river Hiddekel.  Mary Baker Eddy has defined this river as "divine Science understood and acknowledged." The top element in this column is also the element to which the first half of the painting Christian Unity belongs, and and its verse below, and also the respective stanza for this element possition from the Lord's prayer enriched by Mary Baker Eddy with the spiritual sense of it (see S&H 17).

For Christian Science brings to view 
The great I Am, - 
Omniscient power, - gleaming through 
Mind, mother, man.

And Love is reflected in love

I hope that you find this Web-presentation useful. It is the product of countless hours of work produced over many years. Should you care to send an honorary acknowledgement for the work done, your support will gratefully appreciated.

Thank you,
Yours in truth and love