Gratitude is often recommended by psychologists and teachers as a tool for well-being or as a habit that builds character. We are told to practice gratitude and in return, feel calmer, more content, and more virtuous. In Scripture, gratitude—todah in Hebrew, found throughout the psalms—is never an end in itself. So while modern self-help turns gratitude inward, the biblical sense directs it upward. It becomes the gateway to praise.

And praise, as C.S. Lewis wrote in Reflections on the Psalms, “not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment.” Joy is not complete until it is stated or shared. When we are moved by beauty—a melody, a story, a meal, or a child’s accomplishment—and then recount it, or turn to someone beside us and say, “Isn’t it lovely?” our delight becomes deeper and more enduring than when it is kept to ourselves. So it is with God. Praise enlarges joy and draws us into communion with the One who gives it.

Of course, gratitude and praise do not always come easily. Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians—“make your requests known to God with thanksgiving” (4:6)—can sound impossible when prayers go unanswered. Psalm 100 begins, “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,” but who among us feels ready to shout, right now? And when Jesus told the crowds who followed him that they sought him only because they “ate their fill of the loaves” (Jn 6:26), perhaps he also empathized with them, and so he tried to do more with his words than than scold them for ingratitude.

In calling himself “the bread of life,” Jesus gathered up Israel’s story—the manna in the wilderness, the bread of the Presence in the temple, Ezekiel’s bread pointing to exile, the voice of Wisdom calling, “Come, eat of my bread” (Prov. 9:5). In doing so, he reminded the people how God had cared for them through history, revealed himself as the fulfilment of ancient promises, and assured them that grace was still among them. Earlier, Jesus had also spoken of “the bread of heaven” to refer to the manna—a gift sent from God. But now, in claiming to be “the bread of life”, he is not merely describing a gift from God; he is revealing himself as the Giver. In Jesus, both meanings meet: heaven’s gift and heaven’s life shared among us.

But the crowds wanted certainty and proof; a sign that would help them believe (Jn 6:30). Instead, Jesus offered the mystery of presence. Don’t we all long for the same certainty? A medieval story tells of a priest who, burdened by doubt, confessed to his bishop that he preached faith he no longer felt and celebrated sacraments that seemed empty. The bishop told him to wait for the Pope’s visit to seek counsel. Years later, when the visit finally came, the priest poured out his heart. The Pope listened, leaned close, and whispered two words: “Fake it.”

Scandalous as that sounds, it was not advice to pretend, but to keep practicing faith until the heart catches up. The ancients knew what psychology now confirms: we act our way into belief more readily than we think our way into acting. Our worship—psalms and prayers, bread and wine, confession and absolution—trains us to recognize God’s presence even when it feels absent, beginning simply by turning our attention away from ourselves.

Our central act of worship, the Eucharist, literally means thanksgiving. Week after week we repeat this rite, not because we always feel thankful, but because through it our praise is shaped into communion with God and one another. The bread we bless and break comes from the earth—it is the work of human hands and the fruit of creation. Yet, offered back to God, it becomes something more: a meeting place between heaven and earth. Notice that it is not raw grain or unpressed grapes on the altar, but bread and wine—elements already transformed by human effort, mixed with water, yeast, warmth, and time. In them we glimpse how God works in us: taking what is ordinary and transforming it through love.

The Eucharist mirrors the meals we share at home—today’s Thanksgiving table, perhaps. There is comfort in the familiar gestures: washing hands, setting the cloth, placing food and drink; here in the chancel exactly as it is at home. Yet two things make this meal different. We cannot stop at placing the gifts on the altar, and we cannot do it alone. The bread must be broken and the wine poured out, as Jesus’ life itself was. The early Church understood Christ’s self-offering as the final Passover. And at the original Passover, the sacrifice which enabled the escape from Egypt was completed not in the death of a lamb, but in the sharing of the meal made with its meat. Likewise, in our Communion meal today, it is in the breaking of the bread that revelation occurs, and in its sharing that grace becomes our own.

Our Eucharistic prayer calls our participation in this rite a “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.” We give up our time and attention; we rise early and stay awake in worship; for a moment, we set aside the focus on self. And at this meeting point of surrender and grace, the Eucharist teaches us to see the goodness already around us and within us, and to receive it freely. At times, joy may feel out of reach; conversely, at other times its arrival may stir guilt—that poignant, uneasy sense that we have more than our share while others suffer. Worship reminds us that it is alright to receive an unmerited gift, and that the world is full of beauty we should feel free to delight in. 

So this Thanksgiving weekend, let us, like Anne of Green Gables, remember that beauty helps us “dream better¹”—and pray better, hope better, give thanks better. Let us notice the colours of the season, savour the scent of bread from the oven, take that second helping of pie, enjoy the warmth of sweaters and pumpkin-spice lattes, and the company around the table. These pleasures, received with gratitude, are not at all distractions from holiness but glimpses of it—ordinary sacraments of daily life. All these gestures, here in church and in our homes, lead us back to the altar, where our praise makes our joy complete and helps us enter into the posture of worship.

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1. October was a beautiful month at Green Gables, when the birches in the hollow turned as golden as sunshine and the maples behind the orchard were royal crimson and the wild cherry-trees along the lane put on the loveliest shades of dark red and bronzy green, while the fields sunned themselves in aftermaths.
   
   Anne reveled in the world of color about her.
   
   “Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of gorgeous boughs, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t they give you a thrill—several thrills? I’m going to decorate my room with them.”
   
   “Messy things,” said Marilla, whose aesthetic sense was not noticeably developed. “You clutter up your room entirely too much with out-of-doors stuff, Anne. Bedrooms were made to sleep in.”
   
   “Oh, and dream in too, Marilla. And you know one can dream so much better in a room where there are pretty things.”
   
   – L.M. Montgomery,  “Anne of Green Gables”, ch. 16.
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Questions to Consider

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6)

1. Paul connects prayer with thanksgiving. How might gratitude transform the way you present your concerns to God?
2. What does it mean to you to “let your requests be made known to God”, especially in light of God’s all-knowing? Does this suggest release, trust, or something else?
3. The story of the doubting priest and the Pope quoted above suggests that sometimes faith begins with simply “showing up.” When have you found yourself “acting your way into faith” rather than “thinking your way into it”?
4. Our Eucharistic prayer names thanksgiving and praise as a sacrifice. What kind of “sacrifice” does giving thanks require of you—attention, humility, time, vulnerability?
5. Anne Shirley found that noticing beauty helped her “dream better.” What is one small, daily practice—something you can do this week—that might help you notice God’s presence now, and envision the future with hope?