the topic of gratitude, and what I wanted to do is to go beyond the psychological description of that experience of gratitude and to see what it implies, to treat gratitude as a kind of mirror in which certain realities are reflected. one might almost say a kind of metaphysical in general. We've got a bounce topic. Yeah, but shall I begin on? Yeah, sure. Well, I wanted to say, as the opening word, how grateful I am that I am allowed to speak about gratitude here, where I myself feel a great gratitude.

[01:10]

Mancetia certainly is, for me, a great gift in my life, and so you may take these few words, these few remarks which I would like to make as a token of my gratitude towards you and my gratitude towards God. And so I would like to turn to the phenomenon of gratitude and first make a few remarks about what presents itself to our inspection. The first thing which we notice is that gratitude is possible only towards person. We can be grateful only towards a person and another person than we ourselves. Gratitude does not belong to those attitudes which we may take towards ourselves.

[02:17]

We may feel, have an attitude towards ourselves for instance, of appraisal of ourselves, or we may have an attitude, a very deep one, of love for ourselves, but we cannot think ourselves. It's not so that we ought not to, but we cannot. It always presupposes an I-Thou relationship. And that includes that we cannot be grateful towards an it such as nature, the cosmos, life. Where we do such a thing or pretend to do that, we certainly treat these entities as persons. And then a second thing which we notice right away is that gratitude wells up

[03:25]

It has a spontaneous character. It's there. If a certain situation is given, it is not something which we willingly turn on. I mean now the feeling of gratitude is distinct from giving sex. The feeling of gratitude has a spontaneous character. And when do we feel grateful? We feel grateful then when something happens to us which has a positive, favorable character, which is a good for me, not only a good in itself, but a good for me, which directs itself to me, something about which I can feel happiness or joy, as the case may be. something which I recognize, or think I recognize, as being given to me by someone.

[04:38]

It's the difference between, let us say, the joy I feel when I find something. I will find a good thing and say, oh, how wonderful, and rejoice about that. And then I will find out No, this was given to me. When I realize that it was given to me, I may still wonder why it was given to me. It may keep my feeling in suspense, all this without much thinking about it. It arises spontaneously that there is a wondering why was I favored. And if I satisfy myself that I was favored because the other wanted to favor me, because the other was friendly to me, then gratefulness is there. If I am suspicious about the motivations of the other, my gratefulness will not well up.

[05:45]

Or it may be so that I felt grateful and then find out The other has not done this out of friendliness, but perhaps to bribe me. In that moment my gratitude disappears. I cannot feel grateful. It depends on a recognition that here has been a person who wanted to be friendly towards me. There is a cognitive element. and this cognitive element is very important in the metaphysical context into which I would like to place gratitude at a later date. Now, we find this characteristic situation that I recognize, the French word être reconnaissant, reconnaissance is very characteristic

[06:51]

to bring this cognitive element out. I can find the situation in which I am grateful on one first level. Somebody does something small but nice but good out of some sort of solidarity. I need such instances. drop a glove without noticing it, somebody picks it up and gives it to me. I say, oh, thank you. I recognize that the other has realized that here would be a loss for me. He has prevented something disagreeable for me. very important yet, a disagreeable experience, and he has done so, I assume, out of a certain solidarity.

[08:04]

I speak of a case where the other person doesn't know me, I don't know him, he is just a passer-by and picks the glove up. What is implied here? Implied is a recognition of our mutual dependence on one another. The other, so to speak, says, well, I know that we human persons should help one another. And we can see that when we think of the negative case, if we would observe a situation such as somebody drops a glove and the other sees it and just passes by. The negative is very significant and very, so to speak, much greater and bigger than the positive in the refusal to help.

[09:08]

He, in a way, refuses the solidarity which we naturally have as human beings defending human beings time and again in difficult situations time and again labouring time and again in need. If somebody refuses to actualize that human solidarity, something really awful and terrible happens there. But also, if I would refuse to thank him, if I would not actualize that interpersonal world. He gives it to me and I will take it. Somebody who looks on is startled and will think, well, he wants to go it alone. He disrupts, so to speak, this simple fabric of human solidarity.

[10:13]

He has, in a way, foregone the mutual world of help, which is, of course, always a sign that something much deeper is here at stake. A person who refuses to think when he has received a small favour, even on the level of politeness, refuses to think. There is behind that, but there can be a great number of different things, but always something where a person resents the fact that he is dependent, where a person does not want to acknowledge the human condition, where a person is in revolt against this

[11:19]

humble human condition in which we depend upon others. Or it may be that he has made up his mind to think that all human beings are egotistic, that there isn't such a thing as genuine friendliness, genuine goodwill. He has maneuvered himself into a position where the world is nothing but a power gain, or nothing but at the best a quid for quo giving and taking things, exchanging goods. When I thank somebody, I recognize him as a person. I recognize him as more than a means in my I recognize that here is a person who has done something for me as a person.

[12:28]

I recognize our interpersonal human world. And at the same time, there is an element of humility in it. There is an element of, which we said, deep roots of saying yes to our human situation. Now, of course, the world of the other, the world of the interpersonal, the interwoven fabric of the interpersonal world emerges in such a small thing only with some features, important ones, but features which do not yet go to the root of human existence, the other can become much more deeply involved in situations which are reflected, as it were, in fact.

[13:40]

I think now of two cases which I would like to bring together, although they mark somewhat the extremes on an entirely new level. Let us think that a lover brings a flower, gives a flower to the beloved person. One example. Or another. Somebody unknown to me, unknown to him. saves my life, risks his own life, or risks his own position of what it may be, and does things for me which are absolutely vital, which do not concern just something I have, like a glove, but what I am, my existence, or perhaps something which is

[14:49]

connected with my existence, something which concerns my health or my means of survival or what it may be. Now, in such a case, it is not merely, or in these two cases, it's not merely human solidarity which emerges. If we think of the first case, What is there? Let's see what is there by turning it into an absurd caricature. Let's say it's a box of candy the lover gives to the beloved. And the beloved just opens the candy and eats it all. Something is wrong. Or let's take another case.

[15:53]

She gets the box of candy and puts it there and says, oh, you are so wonderful. Turn to the other. Now, in the second case, we have the feeling it is better. But still, it is not perfectly right. Because somebody who gives a gift wants to give his love. wants to express in the gift and give in the gift to an extent himself. Now, there is this very delicate interplay. The receiver is happy about the gift and it belongs to the true recognition that in the film be happy because the lover wanted to make her happy.

[16:59]

He did not just want to express himself. He wanted to make the other person happy. So the expression of happiness is a way of thinking. And on the other hand, there must also be this full recognition What you really have done to me is that you have affirmed my person, that you have shown that I matter for you, that in your world I figure as important. You have said yes to me. There's the wonderful German word, beyan, to yes a person. In the English language it doesn't exist, but you may get the meaning. A person is yesed when receiving the gift, a gift of love.

[18:06]

It is much more what is recognized in my thinking peer than this world of human solidarity. In the world of human solidarity, in my thinking, I, so to speak, look up for a moment. I am concerned with my own affairs. Here somebody helps me. I look up. I emerge from the pure utilitarian pursuit of my things and turn to the other. Here is a moment of international contact. But in the new case, The interpersonal contact is there and is actualized in the gift, and the interpersonal contact has a much deeper meaning. I am not only occasionally and for a fleeting moment recognized as a person.

[19:07]

I am in my I-hood, so to speak, guest. The other has done something for me. not with any implied meaning, well, I hope one day you will do the same for me. We are in the same boat, let's do these things for one another. No, it is a saying yes to this person, I mean you, because I love you. And in a somewhat different way, we have that in the case which is that of charity a gratitude for charity in the gratitude for charity there is of course a certain carrying over of solidarity only on a much deeper level

[20:14]

on a level which we do not reach by merely recognizing well after all we must have one another because otherwise who could prosper? Not that. It is a much deeper recognition that we metaphysically are helpless, that we are human beings in need in the deepest strata of our being. We see in charity, a reflection of God's mercy towards us. And it is very characteristic that we are taught charity by Christ. In charity, there is always a question of salvation, saving the other on perhaps a material level. or on the level of his survival than some sort of saving and some sort of what is expressed in the French word engagement.

[21:28]

In a work of charity, in a deed of charity, the charitable person engages himself. He takes up the cause of the other and that the deepest cause of the other. his eternal welfare. It is a deed where to which gratitude must respond on a correspondingly deep level. The depths of charity and the depths of gratitude correspond to one another. And it is so that in a deed I receive in something which is done to me out of charity, there is a great appeal for the one who receives, a kind of appeal to recognize his dependence on the mercy of God and those who in the name of God

[22:44]

There is humility implied in a much deeper way, in a way which is much more essential, and therefore charity is so often resented because it means that I should recognize on such a deep level how much I am in need, finally in need of salvation, in need to be saved, that It belongs to the human condition that we cannot save ourselves, that we cannot pull ourselves out of our misery. It means a recognition first that we are in misery in this valley of tears, that we are fallen creatures, that we are helpless, and that we depend on mercy.

[23:46]

And now here is something which connects this case with the one of the lover. I cannot claim. It is not so that the one who receives the gift can claim the gift. The one who gives the gift does not experience his own giving as, well, it just appleases me, sir, he feeds that he has to, that he ought to. For instance, let us take a case where this is very clear. In merciful forgiveness, I can beg, we have to forgive. that I cannot claim that he forgives me, but he must forgive me.

[24:51]

This is a situation so different from one in which a person A makes a promise to the person B, and the person B can claim that now this promise B can. But where there is love involved The receiver receives it as a sheer gift. The receiver receives it with the feeling and the right feeling. This to me. Why to me? And the giver gives it with the answer, so to speak. Because you are who you are. Because you deserve it. You deserve it. but you cannot claim it. It is this very delicate situation which is so essential for the interpersonal world in its deeper aspects, in its aspects of love and charity.

[25:59]

Now, I would love to go more into the charity, but since the time progressed, I would like to turn to that very interesting and baffling phenomenon. Something happens, a great event, where we cannot make any particular person, any human person, no human person gives this to me. one has given up hope that he ever would come home and then he does come home now those who love him will be overjoyed that he has been saved and there is somebody who is connected with it they want to thank the Father but let's assume there is nobody he just comes home and it is most natural then

[27:05]

that they feel an impulse, nay, an obligation to think. But hope. He came home. This spontaneous rising of gratitude where we receive an anonymous gift, where we find ourselves with a gift in our hand, something wonderful happens, particularly when we are spared something we fear. our own health is given back to us our own well-being is given to us we may thank the doctor but we feel that this is only only a little bit of the gratitude which we have to give there is something more people who usually do not think of God almost instinctively turn to God just that in the book of St Francis says, Rossetti, you know the British poet of the 19th century, Rossetti makes a remark somewhere bitterly, because he was an atheist, bitterly, but with great truth, that the worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and there's nobody to thank.

[28:34]

Now, what does this very general, very widespread human phenomena of thanking someone when we find ourselves with a large gift in our hand. What does that mean? One can say, well, that's just a remnant of former times where All nature was interpreted in animistic or spiritistic terms. We were looking for gods behind the scenes everywhere. Well, that's just such an atavism, such a leftover from former civilizations, from primitive religious experiences of our forefather.

[29:34]

Now, I think... that that is nonsense. Maybe that in a certain case one could establish that the form it takes with somebody who now is an unbeliever there is some form presented to him by the civilization in which he lived. But that is not a sense. When we see the good gifts of our life, our health, our friendship, all beautiful things, and sing a beautiful day, we sing for that day, or we hear a beautiful piece of music, we sing. In all these gifts there is more than something which is just agreeable.

[30:34]

These are genuine gifts goods, which have a quality, which have a capacity to make us happy, many different layers, many different extent and so on, but they favour us, they give themselves to us and spend themselves in making us happy. Now we have the feeling, with these bliss-giving things, with their bliss-giving power, that this very bliss-giving power bespeaks our person, that this cannot be an accidental aspect, but is that

[31:34]

a real justification? We can attempt first a justification on a somewhat practical and pragmatic level. We may ask which person lives a more full satisfactory life? Let's ask that question in psychological terms who is more able to fully live as a human being one who receives ingratitude whatever it is or one who takes things for granted and somehow stifles that welling up gratitude it is clear And we can make it very specific.

[32:37]

It is the person who is grateful. Because gratefulness has this very interesting capacity that it gives us truly the gift. We may go so far as to say where we take, where we accept the thing and take it for us. Without that reverence, humility, that wondering this to me, which is in gratitude, we do not really receive the gift. You will find people who are always unhappy, always looking for something they don't have, who may be in the midst of plenitude, may be very rich people, of people with great possibilities culturally and so on, and deeply unhappy.

[33:43]

Why? Because they starve on the full table. That power which gratitude has to open the gift so that the gift can really reach people, that power is never actualized and you can have people who have very little, who receive very humble gifts, who in comparison with others are not particularly favored, and who are deeply happy. Why? Because they really receive what they receive. And we may even go so far as to say, if we find ourselves in unhappiness, or in revolt, or in envy, or clamouring for things, what we should do to return to our happiness is to remember to be grateful, to count the blessings, as one said, to really see what we have received and do receive.

[35:03]

And in this way, become rich. Because that kind of personal richness is not the mere togetherness of goods and a person. It is the fact that the good can really enter into the person. And goods can enter only if we open ourselves to that in gratitude. There is a paradox because gratitude is the response to the received gift, yet there is a kind of readiness for gratitude, there is a kind of reverent, humble readiness to receive, anticipation, trust, hope to receive, which is in this anticipatory gratitude.

[36:08]

And now I would like to make that still more specific. Gratitude certainly has, that's just the pragmatic fact, the capacity to make this more happy, and therefore it pragmatically is justified. But one still may wonder that... you cannot say that proves that God exists you cannot say because it is well let's put it bluntly it's so practical to be grateful for the gifts of our life therefore God is the giver of all good no it is not that and this is an important part when we look into the act of gratefulness to God of a person who has not yet established for himself that God exists.

[37:15]

Let us speak of a person who needs a confirmed atheist who has closed himself and says, well, whatever I feel, God does not exist, and not a person who lives in an established relationship to God in religion, I speak now of a person who lives in the modern world without much awareness of God and finds himself favoured by a tremendous gift. Can we say that in this whirling of gratitude there is a proof of the existence of God, I would be so bold as to say, yes there is, and in a way which can be made so specific and so formal that it fits perfectly into those proofs of the existence of God which we find in the textbooks, only that it is more effective.

[38:27]

What I mean is this. We have seen there are three phases in actual gratitude. There is the response of joy when I find myself with something good. Then comes the wondering, the cognitive phase, who has given this to me? And then comes the second response, the gratitude problem. attitude proper is always preceded by the joy and by the cognitive element in which I satisfy myself that somebody has given it to me. Now, what I think we have here is a kind of telescope proof of the existence of God. When I find myself with a gift, let us say I am wondering about my own existence and find myself in existence and begin to realize what a gift it is to be.

[39:39]

I notice that this my being does not come from myself, but here it is, and we have the elementary certainty that whatever is must have a sufficient Now, if you approach the problem of God's existence with things in the outside world, you can take this table and say, well, since it exists, there must be a sufficient cause for its existence. Therefore, there must be, in the Latinx, if you make all the steps, there must be the creator God. But if you find yourself in existence, and experience your existence as a good, you have here in the received gift, in the experience of receiving your life as a gift, an effect of a call.

[40:46]

But much more than that, when I receive the flower, I certainly look for the call. But I look for more than that. I look also for the motivation. And in searching for the motivation, I find the love of the giver. When I find myself with my own existence, I find myself with an effect for which I have to postulate the call. But more than that, I find myself with a good for which I have to search for the... giver of the good, that is for God who wants to favour me with my existence, somebody in whom that God too learns in such a case of his own existence or existence of a beloved person.

[41:46]

Certainly there is no formal reasoning that there is a kind of telescope and very effective and very good reason. It is perfectly correct. It has only to be spelled out in order to conform to one of the five ways if you want to. It is perfectly in order. It is intellectually correct only that I do not formulate in terms in which we usually formulate our of the existence of God. And therefore I am inclined to assume that a person who turns to God whom he had not yet found when he finds himself with a great gift in his hand is perfectly justified to turn to him in this very act to find him.

[42:51]

It is perfectly possible to find God in my own gratitude not by a reversal, but by a perfectly correct process, because there is the cognitive element, and that cognitive element is a telescoped proof of the existence of God. And now only a few remarks about gratitude, there where it is most most tellingly to be found, that is, where we have understood, where we have learned that we are saved by Christ. The greatest gift or the two greatest gifts are our own existence and our own salvation.

[43:55]

Our salvation, in our salvation there is, first of all, in the non-religious aspect of reality, I find the good gifts here and there, but within the context of much misery, of much suffering, of my own guilt, my own sins, and then, together with all the terrible facts, death and suffering, and with all the horror of the corruption of human nature and the bad and wicked deeds of human beings, gratitude then has a kind of isolated character and goes together with declaring the general aspect of human existence.

[45:05]

Salvation means that we have in the good spell, in the gospel, in the received the message that in Christ this aspect of the word has been uprooted. Naturally speaking, we, so to speak, have to remain in suspense. We don't know what is the last word. We may put it this way, we can only hope that there is hope if we cannot establish our hope we must reckon with the possibility that death and evil have their sway and that everything vanishes at the end and this is what the prince of this world tries to suggest

[46:20]

And wherever you feel yourself depressed with the aspect of decay and of corruption and of wickedness, the prince of this world, so to speak, says, and so it is. This is the last world. This is how it really is. Don't fool yourself. This is terrible. Just despair. And Christ? has overcome death. That doesn't mean we know that all, that we do no more die. It means that death and the destruction is not for life. That the devil and evil are not powerful in the end. Salvation means, among many things, also this, that death is overcome. That in Christ the light is victorious.

[47:27]

That the light has overcome the darkness. That is the most condensed expression for what has happened in the resurrection of Christ. Lumen Christi, the light of Christ. which has shone into the darkness of the world, and although the world has not received it, is victorious. And there we say, they are God. And in Christ, we recognize this last glory of God. And we recognize that this is the most important, the most tremendous fact and therefore we sing gratias admus tibi procta magnam gloriam tua an almost paradoxical expression because the glory of God is in itself you can praise it but then it is also the greatest gift for us that

[48:48]

god is glorious that he is the one who is the victor over death and destruction and is the fullness and the power and the glory and therefore and only on this new level established in revelation is it meaningful what the opening words of the prophecy very digno et just me equo is the right value response is the corresponding see justified the due response very digno

[49:49]

et justum as ecum, and then also et salutare, also unto my own salvation. Nosti vi zempa et obitua gratias ati, dominis ati. Zempa et obitua, that is, as thee prevailing ati, as zent on the background of which everything else is done, that we are gratefully receiving that gift of our existence, that gift of our salvation. Gratefully. And here we receive a third teaching, possible only in the world of Christ. We find ourselves as favoured by the greatest gift, Christ himself.

[50:55]

He gives himself to us in the Holy Sacrament of Thanksgiving. He gives thanks to the Father for this sacrament which he is now instituting at the Last Supper. that he is allowed to give himself to the human being to be with us. And therefore the sacrament is called the Sacrament of Thanksgiving, the Eucharist. And now the priest has received the horse. and asks with the soundness, quid retrievant domino, for omnibus will retrieve it. What shall I give the Lord for all he has given me?

[52:01]

And this most amazing answer, and this answer which in one flash shows us the Old and the New Testament, preparation and fulfillment. our way of thanking death receiving, accepting the gift, what we are here for on earth, we may express in a very simple and I think in a very true way, we are here to learn to receive the gift of our salvation. the chalice of salvation, et no me domini glorificam, the glorification and the thanksgiving go together. What we have to learn here, in many different ways, is what we have to know in eternity, what we have to prepare for, what we have to study as it were, is to accept, to receive.

[53:12]

The greatest virtue is to receive the gift of God. It includes our humble recognition that we need to be saved and cannot save others. It implies that what really is our happiness is not the satisfaction with the satisfying God. that there is something which is fulfilling ourselves on a much deeper level, that which is bliss-giving when we accept it. We have in all eternity only one thing to do, if doing is the right word, to receive, to accept God himself as the gift for us. And in order to learn how to do that, we live here on earth.

[54:19]

And in receiving Christ in the Holy Eucharist, we wonder...

[54:36]

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