Gratitude cannot be forced

Gratitude cannot be forced. Growing up, we often heard our parents say, “You should be grateful,” as kids limply move food around on their plate that they don’t like or want to eat.

Mom, with a type of growl, might say, “Do you know how many children in the world go to bed hungry? They would be overjoyed to have a dinner like that given to them.”

We know that gratitude can’t be forced, of course, but we still find ourselves trying to coerce our kids to be more grateful and we do the same to ourselves also! We enjoy these basics and countless luxuries while so many people in the world struggle just to survive the day. We secretly chide ourselves, “I should be more grateful! But try as I might I’m just not feeling grateful.”

We wonder what is wrong with us or our children. Is my heart hardened somehow? Will I ever feel content and satisfied or do I always need or crave for more? The Feast of Christ the King of the Universe that we celebrate today is given as a challenge to us to end this Church Year in gratitude for our faith, hope and love. It is an occasion to look back upon the past year and see how we have lived the example of Jesus Christ.

If I dare to call myself a Christian, how have I put that term into practice? Am I grateful for the good words and example of others to be and to show Christ to me? What does it mean to me to pray, Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I shall want?”

For centuries, the model or example of God as a Good Shepherd has helped others in making faith decisions. From the Old Testament, Prophet Ezekiel we read that the good shepherd seeks the lost and heals the injured. We, as Christians, call Jesus the Good Shepherd who at the Last Judgment will separate the sheep and the goats and judge them by how they have lived the Corporal and Spiritual works of Mercy.

Jesus teaches by example, and He as judge will recognize the sheep because they lived as He lived. They followed Him as their way, their truth and their life. It is a simple, straightforward and practical way of life to love God and care for a neighbor, to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick and visit the imprisoned. The king or shepherd will simply assign us the place we’ve already chosen by our decision to perform or to neglect love and charity.

Jesus said to His disciples, “Whoever receives you, receives me and whoever receives me, receives Him who sent me.” We are all daily expected to be loving, grateful and kind to each other as our way of honoring and following the example of Jesus Christ the King!

As we celebrate this Feast, we might reflect on the story of a founder of an advertising agency that had the principle that “Companies that attract a high proportion of peak performers are run by managers willing to give power to gain power, not by people who collect power to squelch others.”

The founder gave each manager a Russian doll that had 5 progressively smaller dolls inside it. The smallest one had a message in it that stated, “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we will become a company of giants.”

Go forth and be a giant imitator of Jesus Christ and live His example in the biggest way possible!