June 17, 2026
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
After having studied the Holy Sacrifice as a worship of latria, we will now consider it under another point of view, and we shall see: 1st, that it is an Eucharistic sacrifice, or of thanksgiving; 2d, that we ought to associate ourselves with this spirit of thanksgiving. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to occupy ourselves during Mass with thanking God for His love and His numberless blessings; 2d, to multiply during the day our thanksgivings for the goodness of God, saying to Him, by way of an ejaculatory prayer: Thanks, my God, thanks for all Thou dost continually for me, for the health Thou givest me, and the use of my limbs which Thou dost grant me, and the good thoughts with which Thou dost inspire me, etc. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the Preface: “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.”
Meditation for the Morning
We will consider God as the universal Benefactor of heaven and earth. Let us render to Him, under this title, our thanksgivings and our praises. Let us esteem ourselves happy to have the Holy Sacrifice to offer to Him as Eucharistic, in supplement of our powerlessness to thank Him worthily, and let us say with St. Paul, “I give thanks to my God through Jesus Christ” (Rom. i. 8).
FIRST POINT
Holy Mass is an Eucharistic Sacrifice, that is to say, a Thanksgiving
Infinite gratitude is due to God, since from all eternity He has loved us with an infinite love, destining from then all the blessings He has lavished upon us since time began. And these blessings, what are they? 1st, the whole creation, since the whole of the universe was made for man; 2d, all that Providence has added, and continually adds, to the blessing of creation, whether in the spiritual order or the temporal order: and here the detail would be infinite; 3d, all the good which our neighbor does us, or desires to do us, since he is inspired thereto by the Spirit of God; 4th, the beneficent action of God in all these things; for it is an action of every moment, because the continual preservation of our being and that of others is equivalent to an ever new creation; it is a wholly gratuitous action, since God owes us nothing, since He had nothing to gain in giving us all these good things, and since, far from meriting His favors, we deserve His vengeance; it is an action of the most elevated order, since the blessings which it procures for us are of infinite value; it is His own Son given for our ransom; it is His Holy Spirit which He sends to us to shed His charity in our hearts, to make us Christians and Catholics; it is His blood with which He purifies us and nourishes us by the sacraments and the Sacrifice; it is His interior and exterior graces which preserve the soul from all the sins which it would commit without their succor, and which make it advance in virtue; lastly, it is His Paradise which He offers us and in a manner places at our disposition. Let us raise our thoughts higher still. We ought to count amongst our causes for gratitude: 1st, the glory that God procures to Himself by His works, by His Incarnation, by the praises which the three Divine Persons address to one another, since the glory of God ought to be dearer to us than our own glory, and because the Church makes us sing at the Holy Sacrifice: “We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory” (Gloria in Excelsis); 2d, the riches of grace which God has heaped upon the holy humanity of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mother, all the angels, and all the saints, since by virtue of the communion of saints the graces which each one amongst them receives are as family possessions which call for the gratitude of all. But how shall we acquit such an immense debt as this? We have no other resource but the Holy Sacrifice, a resource which is unique, but also superabundant. For Jesus Christ, offering Himself at the altar as an Eucharistic Victim, renders to God as much as God has given and will ever give; He even gives Him more, because here the victim of thanksgiving is worth as much as God Himself. If, then, we receive all blessings by Jesus Christ, by Jesus Christ also we thank God worthily.
SECOND POINT
We ought to Associate ourselves with the Spirit of Thanksgiving of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrifice
Jesus Christ, in thanking God the Father, did not wish to dispense us from our debt; He desired, on the contrary, to invite us, by His example, to thank the Author of all good in associating us with His sublime thanksgiving; He desired to thank God by all His members united with Him, and thus to spread abroad, throughout the whole earth and in all heaven, the gratitude due to the Most Holy Trinity. Entering into His designs, heaven eternally thanks Him, and the Church on earth never ceases to sing: “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” Let us penetrate ourselves with the same sentiments, and, from the bottom of a heart profoundly touched, let us several times during the day give thanks to God for all the good which He does to us; thanks for the good which He does to the whole of society; thanks for all which He does for the Church, which He enables to survive all her enemies, and to gain on one side what she loses on the other. Woe to him who does not understand this duty of gratitude! Ingratitude, says St. Bernard, dries up the sources of piety, the dew of mercy, the rivulets of grace, dissipates virtue, loses blessings, annihilates merits, ravages and destroys everything in the soul. Gratitude, on the contrary, for one blessing received, calls down new ones; and like the waves of the sea which return thither only to come back once more, so the blessings of God, which we cause to ascend to their adorable Source by means of thanksgivings, return to us with fresh abundance (St. Bern. Serm. ii. in Cant.). Lastly, gratitude animates us with fervor. My God, St. Teresa, the patroness of generous and grateful souls, often said, My God, to think we receive so much and give back so little! Filled with this thought, she was ready to tear herself into pieces for the love of God; and she could not conceive it possible to lead in this world any other kind of life than that which is led in heaven, and which is an eternal canticle of thanksgiving. How far we are from having these sentiments! How little we thank God for His blessings, and how little sensible are we of them! Let us entertain better sentiments, and let our hearts overflow with thanksgiving.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.