Gratitude and Heaven by:C.C

Bethany Retreat House Yard-Abbey of The Genesee 

Gratitude blasts open an attentiveness of Heaven, and suddenly an awareness wells open. In that moment God's reality is not just observed with thanks, but participated in. As if the very breath we breathe in knowledge that it's completely God's , breathes out life around us, and we are one with Him in this, and there is nothing that can take it away or make even one little breath insignificant.

I am most at peace in this, even amidst life with the two tots and plenty of duties. There remains present a place kept above and beyond it all, when hidden in Christ.

And rather than risking me to become estranged and an "enemy" of my world, this sacred hiding place in Christ, kept above and beyond,helps me to emerge as a lover in the most profound sense. 

Gratitude to God is the aching appreciation for eternity, in the humble recognition of glimpses of it's beauty present to us daily.

Simple gratitude must be the dwelling place of one who longs to know eternity. From here we begin scratching the surface of thanks for the immensity of the Eucharistic offering to us, sustaining us to reside, as if hidden in a small part of Heaven, in the midst of the world.