Gratitude

"Gratitude is the antidote for resentment."  This was Father Prusaitis’s point made during his recent homily. I agree, and I find this fact to be a way for me to counter whatever resentment I might have.  I have more than a few.

His homily was based on the Gospel about the last worker receiving the same wage as the first.  Why should a late comer receive the same compensation as the first arrival, the first in line?

Resentments are poisonous to the soul.  They are a cancer of minds and hardeners of hearts.

Being grateful and thankful for what we have – our blessings – is paramount.  Resenting what someone else has, even if we feel it is undeserved or unjust, is foolish and self-harming.  In the case of the last-in-line, hired-late-in-the-day workers receiving the same wage as early workers laboring in the hot sun for many hours, why resent those workers now having money to feed their families, for example?  

Why resent their good fortune? Loving our neighbors is easier when we refuse to resent and act graciously towards others.  Resentment is tied to selfishness and self-centeredness.  As Elsa sang in the Disney movie Frozen, “Let it go!”

Deacon David Pierce