A question: what is it that allows people to keep on giving? What is it that motivates someone who isn’t receiving any reward or payment to continue being generous?

People like whom? Like St. Paul who amid many trials keeps on offering the good news of the Gospel, as he says, “free of charge.” Or for that matter, someone like the Lord Jesus who, worn out and needing to just get away at night to pray, starts out again in the morning giving all he has.

Or a St. Vincent de Paul, who after decades of pouring himself out for the poor of his day, keeps up that overflowing dedication till the very end.

Different saints have testified to the origin and source of this selflessness, this capacity to keep on giving. And they have zeroed in on one core trait: gratitude. Living a life animated by a deep-down thankfulness for all that has been given.

One commentator pinpoints gratitude as, in his words, “the first movement of the spiritual life.” Powering any selfless movement toward God and neighbor is a heartfelt realization of the fullness of what God has given us. This author would recommend gratitude as an everyday virtue, a habit to be practiced regularly all through life. Letting ourselves be moved by the energy of thankfulness carries everything else along with it.

Another writer suggests a brief method for keeping up this continuous and constant gratitude, one he names “Stop, Look, and Go.”  It focuses on the opportunity that lurks in each moment.

First, slow down and stop so we can open our heart and all our senses to what the present moment is offering. Secondly, look for the gift and opportunity that each presents. And finally, go — do whatever life offers us at that moment, mostly simply to enjoy it, but also to reach out and help others. It’s when appreciating our own gifts, he observes, that we become more likely to share them with others.

There’s a saying: “to practice caring is to practice gratitude.” Everywhere we turn, charity is needed. For sure in the crises all over the globe, but also in the world immediately around us. Might my conscious awareness of all I’ve been given translate into this care for others. Might my heightened sense of gratitude widen the range of whom I might help?

It’s more than coincidence that the word Eucharist is a derivative of the word for thanks. When we enter it each week, we not only join in with the gratitude of millions of fellow worshippers all over the world, but we become part of the thanks that Our Lord Jesus is offering to his dear Abba. And more importantly, it’s in this sacrament that we see acted out before us our deepest reason for being thankful: the outpouring of Jesus’ very own Self, forever being handed over for us.