Gratitude

This week we are benefitted with an additional Bible Lesson, “Thanksgiving,” which Mary Baker Eddy composed, for reading in churches on Thanksgiving Day. In this lesson we read in section 1:

“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.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures p.3:22)

Further to this point W. Stuart Booth, in his Sentinel (October 1, 1932) article “The Grace of Gratitude,” writes, “No matter how abundantly we may have been blessed by Christian Science, we shall receive more as we are fitted to receive it by availing ‘ourselves of the blessings we have’! And everyone desires added blessings, since complete satisfaction is never attained until we awake with God's likeness, as the Psalmist states.”

Another Sentinel article from November 20, 1971, “Thanksgiving Every Day,” by Naomi Price explains, “the annual emphasis on giving thanks provides us with an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to the purpose of expressing this abiding gratitude. One can use the opportunity to see why we should make the effort to be grateful ‘each day of all the years,’ how we can accomplish it, and what we can expect to develop as the result of constant thankfulness.”

Again in Science and Health Mrs. Eddy encourages us, “To keep the commandments of our Master and follow his example, is our proper debt to him and the only worthy evidence of our gratitude for all that he has done.” (p. 4:5–9)

From the Church Manual we read the oft-quoted admonition from Mrs. Eddy that, “Gratitude and love should abide in every heart each day of all the years.” (Man. 60:15-17)

“In God I find a precious gift

That knows no fear, no feud,

That glows so still, serene and pure:

The gift of gratitude.”

(Christian Science Hymnal, No.  146:1)

Kenneth Foster, CS