“… NOTHING is more agreeable than to receive a good thing that we are eager to possess. But gratitude is the key to the inexhaustible treasury of that Lord of infinite wealth. Go with confidence and ask of Him what you wish; all you have to do is to return thanks for what He has already given you, and the new gifts and graces are already prepared for you. ‘Be nothing solicit­ous,’ says St. Paul ‘but in everything, by prayer and supplica­tion with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God’ (Phil. 4: 6); for gratitude gives prayer its greatest efficacy. Do you wish, therefore, to be in good health? Then thank God for the health He has given you hitherto. Do you wish to have means to support yourself and your family? Then thank God for the daily bread He gives you. Do you wish to bring up your children well, so that God may bless them? Then thank Him that He has pre­served them in innocence up to this. Have you some affair on hand that you wish to bring to a successful termination? Thank God for having so often helped you in your business and aided you with His fatherly protection. Are you visited by suffering, crosses, or trials? Thank God for having saved you from still worse, which many others have to complain of. Have you suf­fered loss in your temporal affairs through misfortune? Thank God for having preserved to you so long what His Providence knew to be for your good, and for having now taken it away for the same reason. Are you well endowed in temporal matters? Thank God for it and through Christian charity share your wealth with those who have nothing, that so God may preserve it to you. If you have little, then thank God for that, too, and through gratitude give to Him, in the persons of the poor, some of the little you possess.”

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