The Absolute Necessity of Saying "Thank You"

there's nothing better than thankfulness and there's probably nothing worse than when thankfulness is not present [Music] hi my name's father mike schmitz and this is ascension presents years ago on campus we had this young man who um by all accounts uh should have been like overjoyed at his life he had a good family he had great friends on campus he did well in school he was uh he's a runner he was the runner on the cross country team on the track team did really really well he was dating an incredible girl at the time and remember him coming to me at one point and he's like father i don't know what it is about my life but i just like i feel so blah i feel so meh about the whole thing like i know there are some good things and and uh that's that's fine that's that's that's nice but i would imagine i would be happier i imagine i'd be more passionate about my life um for all these for where i'm at you know for where i am at and i was like yeah yeah that makes sense and we talked a little bit more we wanted to make sure there weren't any like other underlying things that like weren't being addressed like mental health issues or other things like that because those those are real things that can that can rob a person of joy obviously and those weren't the case and so i said because of those things weren't the case here's a prescription here's something i'm going to invite you to do um and that one thing was i said every night and every morning so morning and evening um i want you to stop and ask the holy spirit to be with you and help you pray and think of four things that are gifts in your life that you're thankful for in the morning and evening so just in the morning quick what ask holy spirit to help what are four things in my life that i'm grateful for four gifts in my life that i'm grateful for and then the third part is then thank god for those things so first thing ask god for help holy spirit for help second thing what are the gifts in my life what are realities in my life that that are gifts and the third thing is then to turn to the lord and say thank you just turn to the lord and say thank you because a lot of us do this a lot of us like you know we count up our blessings that's a really nice thing to do uh here's the areas in my life where i'm gifted here's the the things in my life that are blessings but we don't do that third part that third part of like turning to god and saying person to person like from i to thou god thank you because these blessings are from you and i have you to thank for them we all know this we all know what it's like to be around someone who just cannot cannot bring themselves to face to say thank you who cannot bring themselves to look at the actual good things that are in their life and and they themselves find themselves be trapped i mean if you've ever been a person who's been stuck in unthankfulness or stuck in ingratitude you realize like i don't want to be here i don't want to be someone who is ungrateful i want to be someone who's able to be grateful people who are ungrateful don't even like being around themselves so how do we become that kind of person how do we become the kind of person who is grateful it's a matter of not waiting for feeling grateful but it's doing what i invited this young man to do is every morning and every evening i stop ask the holy spirit to help me to guide me and then i count my blessings it doesn't have to be a ton just four four is great what are four gifts in my life and then i turn to the lord and i say thank you saint paul in his letter to the thessalonians he says this he says in everything give thanks so he didn't say when you feel like it give thanks he said in everything in all things give thanks for this is the will of god for you in christ jesus that's the thing about the person who has chosen to be grateful the person who has chosen to be grateful has chosen to see that god is intimately involved in my life whether that's part of his perfect will or whether it's part of his permissive will right we talked about this in another video whether this is part of god's perfect well this is actually what he desires for me it's a positive thing it's his perfect well or his permissive will where he's allowing this me to go through this because he knows that he can bring about a greater good even in the midst of pain that's one of the great gifts of practicing this regular discipline this regular routine of gratitude because not only does it change the morning in the evening but it changes the entire day because the entire day then becomes an opportunity for me to give thanks right in everything in all things give thanks not just randomly not just occasionally not just when things are amazing but even when things are difficult you know the people of israel they had a number of sacrifices in the old covenant that were given through the law of moses a number of sacrifices that were given to the people of israel there were sacrifices of repentance there were sacrifices of uh praise or sacrifices um in intercessionary in intercessionary intercessory intercessory sacrifices all kinds of sacrifices but there but there was one sacrifice one offering that was called the tada offering t-o-d-a-h in english the tada offering was a sacrifice of thanksgiving and it was the sacrifice that you would offer after having been delivered from potential catastrophe it was the uh the offering the sacrifice you would make when you had been redeemed possibly by the by the lord from battle and you survived or you had been in dire straits and god had brought you through that that storm into a safe harbor you would offer up to the sacrifice the thanksgiving offering you had been redeemed your life had been saved and now all you have to do is just god regardless of anything else in my life i need to give you thanks now the rabbis would say that in the age to come in the age of the messiah every sacrifice will cease then the age to come all sacrifices will cease except for the tada sacrifice that in the age of the messiah the age to come all sacrifices will go away except for one sacrifice and that is the todah sacrifice that is the thanksgiving sacrifice and that is literally what has happened i mean think this is what has happened because in the year 70 a.d tragically um the temple was destroyed by the romans and so many jews were slaughtered in the city of jerusalem by the romans the temple was destroyed so there are no more sacrifices and since since the destruction of the temple in the year 70 a.d there have been no more sacrifices because why well because that evil thing had happened but also because this is the age of the messiah and in the age of the messiah all sacrifices will cease except for one the tada the thanksgiving sacrifice and what sacrifice is that we call it the eucharist the mass you might know this already but eucharist is greek for thanksgiving just like tada is is hebrew for thanksgiving eucharist is greek for the exact same word and that is the one second thing about this coming out of the jujeo judeo-christian tradition the only sacrifice that exists in all of the world right now from the judeo-christian tradition is the mass is the eucharist is the thanksgiving offering the thanksgiving sacrifice why because we are a people who have been redeemed from certain slavery and death to the evil one by our lord and god and so all we all we all we offer now all we offer is a sacrifice of thanksgiving we do it we can do it every day you can go to mass every single day and especially we can go to mass on days like thanksgiving as days like sunday that commemorates the resurrection of jesus when he conquered death for us we give him that thanksgiving sacrifice that ta-da offering in all things we give thanks so this young man came back to me two weeks later and i was like okay so how's it going and he said oh my gosh father it has changed everything for me it has changed absolutely everything i remember thinking like whew good i was hoping that would happen he said just it's that kind of situation where he says i see blessings everywhere now i see gifts everywhere now what i thought is just drudgery of my schoolwork like it's an opportunity what i thought is just kind of like this is what i'm doing when i'm running like this is a gift my body doesn't have to move like way it moves but it can that comes from god himself to all these different areas of his life because he took that step and said okay the holy spirit help me what are my blessings then turn to the lord and said thank you you are the source of all blessings this is my todah this is my eucharist this is my thanksgiving when we can bring both of those together your practice of offering thanks in the morning and the evening back to the eucharist our lives become lives of praise and thanksgiving and there is nothing better than thanksgiving and there's nothing worse than a lack of thanksgiving anyways for all of serious edition presents my name is father mike god bless [Music] you

Channel: Ascension Presents

Views: 52,507

Keywords: Fr. Mike, Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents, Ascension, Ascension Youtube, Ascension Press, Father Mike Schmitz, Fr. Mike advice, Father Mike advice, fr. mike schmidt, thanksgiving, giving thanks, thank you, thanking God, catholic thanksgiving, gratitude, thanksgiving and catholicism, thanksgiving and the catholic faith, thanksgiving and the church, eucharist, meaning of eucharist, meaning of thanksgiving, how to be thankful, thanksgiving 2020, covid thanksgiving

Id: EnS7-ZjPfmQ

Length: 9min 16sec (556 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 25 2020