Visitation, by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1491), depicts Mary visiting her elderly cousin Elizabeth.

There is a beautiful hymn, or prayer, which the Gospel of Luke reports to be the words of Mary in response to Elizabeth’s greeting to her when she had come to visit her after giving her “yes” to be the Mother of the Lord. This hymn is known as the Magnificat. It is prayed every evening by those who recite the Liturgy of the Hours as part of evening prayer. This hymn states the following:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

I think this prayer of Mary is the best summary for this Sunday’s readings. In it Mary, the greatest example of the Christian life, expresses her thanksgiving for all that she has received through God’s generosity. This hymn of thanksgiving, by acknowledging that everything is a gift from God, is ultimately, the perfect hymn of humility.

For many people, when they think about humility, they believe it means putting themselves down and praising others. This is not what humility is. Rather, Christian humility is a call to recognize the truth about ourselves and to see this truth in relationship to the one who has given us all that we have received. In the Magnificat, Mary acknowledges that God is the source of all that she does and has received. As a result of this, she proclaims “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Mary lives out of the truth, that God has given her everything and that everything that she is and does is a gift from God.

Whether you and I are able to admit it or not, the truth about us is that everything we have and are is a gift from God. We sometimes like to think that we are responsible for our success and all that we have. We may think it is because we have worked hard that we have attained the things and accomplishments for which we feel pride. The simple truth is that we would be nothing without God and that everything that we are and have is a gift from God.

Please think about this for a minute. There is nothing that we have that is not a gift from God. If we have done well in our studies and accomplished great things in business, it is simply because we were born in a time that such opportunities were readily available. If we came to Canada and built a life from nothing, it is also because we lived in an age when such travel was possible and such opportunities were available. When we think that what we have achieved is the result of our hard work, we need also to be aware that such hard work was possible because God gave us the physical strength and mental health to accomplish that for which we think we are responsible. Everything that we have is from God. Like Mary, we are called to give thanks for all that we have received from God.

Mindful that everything that we have is a gift from God, I would like to share with you one word that has the ability to change your life, if practiced regularly. That one word is “GRATITUDE.”

Gratitude is the humble attitude of realizing that everything we have is a gift. Life is a gift. Health is a gift. All of the people in our lives are a gift. Even when I must face the hardship of saying goodbye to a loved one, I must realize that they years that I had with that individual, and the very fact that I will miss him or her, is a result of the fact that he or she was a gift from God.

The wonderful thing about gratitude is that it grounds us in what is real!

We are only grateful for what we have. Therefore, when we are grateful we are focused upon what we have and find joy in that reality. It is only when we start to think about what others have, what they look like, what kind of car they drive, that we start to feel entitled to things which we do not have. Looking at others and comparing our situation to theirs is what often makes us unhappy and feel that we are entitled to what they have. We see this in today’s Gospel. Those who were invited to the wedding banquet were happy enough to accept the invitation and respond positively to it. It is only when they arrived and started to compare themselves to others that they began to feel entitled to a better place than others. I believe that this can often happen in our own lives. We might be perfectly content with what we have; until we see what others have. Only when we compare ourselves to others, do we start to consider what we have as less than and begin to desire other things.

Comparing ourselves to others can often be the source of great and unnecessary unhappiness. This reality develops in us at the earliest stages of our lives. I have often been surprised to go into an elementary school and speak with a young child who was in great distress and sadness. When questioned about the source of this great unhappiness, it has often been reported that the source of the unhappiness is the fact that someone in the class could run faster, or had some other quality that made this otherwise perfectly healthy young person feel inadequate. This then goes on throughout our lives. Often, we are perfectly happy with our lot; until we hear what someone else got or received. Someone else does well or receives a promotion that we did not, and all of a sudden, we feel terribly sad, and as though the world was an unjust place. Envy blinds us to the gifts that we have and focuses us on things that do not exist in our reality and makes us desire what we do not have. The problem is, when we focus on what we do not have, we will never be happy. There will always be something that we are missing and that is absent from our realities. This focus on what we do not have means that we always feel entitled to more and it leaves us permanently unhappy and focused on what we might never have. Psychologists have actually noted how social media can contribute to this as people post photos of their vacations and new cars, as though their lives were a perfect fantasy. Those who view these perfect pictures go away feeling depressed or desiring a similar life as those which they see on Facebook.

I would like to share with you a simple exercise that I think can change a person’s life. Each day, try to make a short list of the things you are grateful for in your life. It could be as simple as being alive, sill living in your own home, family, a beautiful sunrise, a relative who cares for you, or living to an old age. This kind of gratitude centers us on what is real and what we have. Once you have your list, in prayer give thanks to God for these gifts. In particular, attempt this exercise when you find yourself sad and disappointed because of what others have. By giving thanks to God for what we have, we become aware of how blessed and wonderful the gift of life really is. Once we are aware of these blessings, like Mary, we feel impelled to respond to God’s blessings by praising Him and proclaiming His goodness to us. The Christian life is to be lived in thanksgiving for all that God has done for us. Mary is the example of this.

Ultimately, the greatest thing that God has done for us is saved us through Christ from death. It is gratitude for this salvation that brings us to celebrate the Eucharist each Sunday. In the Eucharist, we remember Christ’s saving death and resurrection, and by doing what He commanded us to do each Sunday, are called like Mary to proclaim the greatness of the Lord. This is why we are sent each Sunday out into the world to continue to proclaim His salvation and continue His work. We ought never to forget that the word “Eucharist” itself means “thanksgiving” and that this is what we as Christians are called to do. Mary is the example of one who did this. By her “yes” she made Christ present. In the month of August, we celebrated two great Marian feasts—her assumption and queenship. As we celebrate her, we are called back to her humble example as proclaimed in the Magnificat. These words remind us that everything that we have in life is a gift. In humility, we are to respond to the gifts that we have received in life by recalling that everything is from God. This attitude of gratitude can change our lives and is the attitude that is required to receive everything back a hundredfold in the Kingdom of Heaven.

May God, who has given us everything, give us the gift of gratitude that we might joyfully proclaim the greatness of our God.

Fr. Michael McGourty
Pastor—St. Peter’s Parish—Toronto, Ontario

This reflection based upon the readings for the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time—Year C: Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29; Psalm 68; Hebrews 12: 18-19, 22-24; and Luke 14: 1, 7-14.