In the Christian Faith, the idea of thankfulness is so central that the pinnacle of Orthodox worship, the reception of Holy Communion, is commonly referred to as the "Eucharist”, which is to say, “Thanksgiving."  What this signifies for those who have deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ is that we are called to be thankful regardless of the circumstances of our lives because we understand the loving way in which God is dealing with us, slowly bringing us to an awareness of our sins and preparing us to stand before Him at the end of our life when we will necessarily give account for how we have lived.

In our day, however, we detect the emergence of a new attitude in which gratitude for what we have is falling into the background and being replaced by a spirit of negativity and complaining, in which we specifically concentrate on (and complain about) what we don’t have.  This approach is certainly very tempting because, undoubtedly, every one of us has been wronged in some way in our lives, perhaps even repeatedly and in a manner that is continuing to the present.  We sometimes feel that if we express our negative feelings that this will give us a type of freedom… we are told that if we “bottle things up they will control us” and so we let it fly.  We devote our energy to identifying so many things that are wrong in our lives and in society that need to be fixed and even consider that, perhaps, we are doing something to rectify these “wrongs” if we post about them on Facebook or complain about them to our friends.  Sadly, this strategy for “release” from oppression only causes us to become more oppressed… more frustrated, more negative and less and less thankful.

By contrast, the saints who came before us found the opportunity to be thankful even in the worst of circumstances.  The Holy Apostle James even says to, “consider it pure joy... whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance" (James 1:2-3).  St. Paul says, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14).  Thankfulness in the Christian understanding is according to a different standard, even as the Lord says in the Gospel of John, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you” (John 14:27).  Peace according to worldy norms occurs when everything goes our way… when we are able to arrange everything in our life and we are in control… and, as a consequence, it is fleeting and short-lived.  The Peace of Christ, however, abides in a loving heart and it continues even when we are facing trials and persecutions, when we are hated, when we are excluded, when we are mistreated.  Our spirit of gratitude towards God should be similar… it should be deeply grounded in Christ and should be a reflection of our understanding of all that God is doing to bring us to our senses and to free us from our passions.

A few years ago, my confessor told me that Hieromonk Seraphim Rose told him that St. John of San Francisco held the American holiday of Thanksgiving in very high esteem despite it not being an Orthodox holiday precisely because of how critical it is for a Christian to remain positive and thankful, to have a truly “Eucharistic” faith, in which we approach our Savior with love and gratitude.  I think of this every year on Thanksgiving and can’t help but do so again this year.

So, in the spirit of adopting a Christian approach to thankfulness, I will list a few of the things that I am thankful for this year:

Fr. Jonah Campbell, Owner, Damascene Gallery Icons