Research has shown that gratitude helps you grow in resilience, which is vital for Catholics seeking healing from trauma and living out their faith well, making the link clearer and more compelling.
This article will explore how gratitude enhances resilience. It will also explore how to foster gratitude.
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A Quick Refresher on Resilience
Resilience is an ability that helps you to do three things:
- Find healing from trauma
- Handle daily stress well
- Thrive, even in the face of adversity.
The three things that resilience helps us to do are essential for living out our Catholic faith. By being resilient, we can better bring Jesus’ healing grace, love, and mercy into our wounds. We can carry our crosses, big and small, with grace and perseverance. And, we can live with joy and abundance and have a foretaste of Heaven now, even if our crosses are heavy.
To learn more about resilience, check out this article.
Research About Gratitude and Resilience
Numerous studies have found that gratitude and resilience are linked, meaning that the more gratitude one has, the more resilient they are likely to be (1).
In her book The Five Practices of Highly Resilient People, Taryn Marie Stejskal describes five practices common among resilient individuals. One of these practices she calls gratiosity, or being both grateful and generous.
Stejskal writes that gratitude helps people grow in resilience by blocking negative emotions, helping us cope with stress in healthy ways, increasing our positive emotions, and, overall, helping us be healthier in mind, body, and soul.
Gratitude as a Christian
Gratitude is also an essential thing for Christians to have, because we believe that “every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17)
Throughout the Bible, we are encouraged many times to give thanks to God. Here are a few examples:
- When the ark of the covenant is returned to Jerusalem, King David sings a hymn of praise and thanksgiving, saying, “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his mercy endures for ever!”
- Many psalms are psalms of thanksgiving, containing similar lines to King David’s hymn of praise mentioned above.
- In his letter to the Colossians, St. Paul urges them to be thankful (3:15)
- In the first letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul urges them to “give thanks in all circumstances” (5:18)
St. Paul and King David exemplify gratitude in Scripture, inspiring us to cultivate thankfulness in our own lives.
King David was anointed as king of Israel as a young man, but had to wait a long time and go through persecution, death threats, and bloodshed to assume the throne. He also fought in many battles, lost children, had much family strife, and sinned greatly.
But King David, despite his sin and troubles, trusted in God’s promises and providence, as evidenced in the many psalms of thanksgiving he penned, praising God for His merciful love.
St. Paul faced much persecution and suffering for the sake of the Gospel, and wrote many of his letters from prison. But still, he often commanded his flocks to thank God for His mercy and love.
The gratitude and trust both of these men demonstrated towards God helped them to be resilient, even in the face of suffering. They can also allow us to be resilient.
How to Foster Gratitude: Seven Suggestions
There are many ways to foster gratitude; below are seven practices designed to help you cultivate a thankful heart.
- The Daily Examen, originated by St. Ignatius of Loyola, helps you reflect on your day and see how God worked through it. One of the steps of this examen is to be thankful for how you saw God working that day. You can learn more here.
- As you see God working throughout your day, take a minute to thank Him spontaneously.
- Pray before meals to thank God for the food you are about to eat.
- Attend Mass. The word Eucharist means “thanksgiving” because in the Mass, we remember Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for our salvation and thank Him. Take a few moments during each Mass to thank God for His mercy.
- Celebrate holidays, holy days, and milestones, and thank God for what they represent, whether it be another year of life, Christ coming to Earth as a baby on Christmas, your marriage, etc.
- Pray the psalms of thanksgiving. Many psalms are prayers of thanksgiving. Start with Psalms 9, 34, 100, 136, and 138, and reflect on how these words apply to the blessings God has given you.
- Offer thanksgiving for answered prayers, such as a Rosary or a Mass.
Conclusion
Gratitude is essential both for life as a Christian and for boosting your resilience. I encourage you to choose one of the ways to foster gratitude listed above and implement it in your life.