Litany of Thanksgiving

For all Thou hast given, Deo gratias.
為您給我的一切  -  天主，感謝您！

For all Thou has withheld, Deo gratias.
為您保留着的一切  -  天主，感謝您！

For all Thou hast withdrawn, Deo gratias.
為您撤消了的一切  -  天主，感謝您！

For all Thou hast permitted, Deo gratias.
為您曾允許的一切  -  天主，感謝您！

For all Thou hast prevented, Deo gratias.
為您曾阻止的一切  -  天主，感謝您！

For all Thou hast forgiven me, Deo gratias.
為您對我的寬恕  -  天主，感謝您！

For all Thou hast prepared for me, Deo gratias.
為您給我作的準備  -  天主，感謝您！

For the death Thou hast chosen for me, Deo gratias.
為您給我揀選的死亡  -  天主，感謝您！

For the place Thou art keeping for me in heaven, Deo gratias.
為您在天國預留給我的那席位  -  天主，感謝您！

For having created me to love Thee for eternity.  Deo gratias.
您創造了我和那份對您不朽的愛，天主，感謝您！

Deo gratias, Deo gratias, Deo gratias!
主啊！我感謝 感謝 感謝您 !

Little Litany of Thanksgiving

For all Thou hast given.
Deo Gratias
For all Thou hast withheld.
Deo Gratias
For all Thou hast withdrawn.
Deo Gratias
For all Thou hast permitted.
Deo Gratias
For all Thou hast prevented.
Deo Gratias
For all Thou hast forgiven me.
Deo Gratias
For all Thou hast prepared for me.
Deo Gratias
For the death Thou hast chosen for me.
Deo Gratias
For the place Thou art keeping for me in heaven.
Deo Gratias
For having created me to love Thee for eternity.
Deo Gratias, Deo Gratias, Deo Gratias

Nothing charms God more than a heart that is grateful either on its own account or on account of others.

--St John Chrysostom, Hom in I Cor 2

To say "thank you" is one of the Pope's most beautiful duties.

(Benedict XVI, Address at the conclusion of Spiritual Exercises, 7 March 2009)

Mementóte mirabílium quae fecit Dominus.

(Psalm 104:5a)

(How shall we repay the Lord for all his goodness to us?)

What words can adequately describe God’s gifts? They are so numerous that they defy enumeration. They are so great that any one of them demands our total gratitude in response.

Yet even though we cannot speak of it worthily, there is one gift which no thoughtful man can pass over in silence. God fashioned man in his own image and likeness; he gave him knowledge of himself; he endowed him with the ability to think which raised him above all living creatures; he permitted him to delight in the unimaginable beauties of paradise, and gave him dominion over everything upon earth.

Then, when man was deceived by the serpent and fell into sin, which led to death and to all the sufferings associated with death, God still did not forsake him. He first gave man the law to help him; he set angels over him to guard him; he sent the prophets to denounce vice and to teach virtue; he restrained man’s evil impulses by warnings and roused his desire for virtue by promises. Frequently, by way of warning, God showed him the respective ends of virtue and of vice in the lives of other men. Moreover, when man continued in disobedience even after he had done all this, God did not desert him.

No, we were not abandoned by the goodness of the Lord. Even the insult we offered to our Benefactor by despising his gifts did not destroy his love for us. On the contrary, although we were dead, our Lord Jesus Christ restored us to life again, and in a way even more amazing than the fact itself, for his state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God, but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave.

He bore our infirmities and endured our sorrows. He was wounded for our sake so that by his wounds we might be healed. He redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for our sake, and he submitted to the most ignominious death in order to exalt us to the life of glory. Nor was he content merely to summon us back from death to life; he also bestowed on us the dignity of his own divine nature and prepared for us a place of eternal rest where there will be joy so intense as to surpass all human imagination.

How, then, shall we repay the Lord for all his goodness to us? He is so good that he asks no recompense except our love: that is the only payment he desires. To confess my personal feelings, when I reflect on all these blessings I am overcome by a kind of dread and numbness at the very possibility of ceasing to love God and of bringing shame upon Christ because of my lack of recollection and my preoccupation with trivialities.

(From the Detailed Rules for Monks by Saint Basil the Great)

(Letter of Mother Teresa to Archbishop Périer)

Your Grace,

Why is it that everybody is good to us?--I have no answer but one deep gratitude....

There is so much contradiction in my soul.--Such deep longing for God--so deep that it is painful--a suffering continual--and yet not wanted by God--repulsed--empty--no faith--no love--no zeal.--Souls hold no attraction--Heaven means nothing--to me it looks like an empty place--the thought of it means nothing to me and yet this torturing longing for God.--Pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything. For I am only His--so he has every right over me. I am perfectly happy to be nobody even to God....

Your devoted child in Jesus Christ,

M. Teresa, MC

(Blessed Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light, pp 169-170)

Many a soul has been brought back to God. Many a dying person has been sent to God, many a child has been taught to love God, many a sick person has been comforted and taught to suffer for love of God, and above all the generous and self-sacrificing lives of our young Sisters must have given much reparation to the Sacred Heart.--And for all these, I beg you to thank God with me.

(Blessed Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light, p 154)

Thou hast given so much to me,
Give one thing more, - a grateful heart;
Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if Thy blessings had spare days,
But such a heart whose pulse may be Thy praise.

(George Herbert)

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!

(Henry Ward Beecher)

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

(G.K. Chesterton)

2 Confitebor tibi, Domine, in toto corde meo,
narrabo omnia mirabilia tua.
3 Laetabor et exsultabo in te,
psallam nomini tuo, Altissime.

I will thank you, Lord, with all my heart;
I will tell of your wonders.
I will rejoice in you and triumph,
make music to your name, O Most High.

(Psalm 9a:2-3)

24 "Now therefore, brethren, let us set an example to our brethren,
for their lives depend upon us, and the sanctuary and the temple and the altar rest upon us.
25 In spite of everything let us give thanks to the Lord our God,
who is putting us to the test as he did our forefathers.
26 Remember what he did with Abraham,
and how he tested Isaac,
and what happened to Jacob in Mesopotamia in Syria,
while he was keeping the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother.
27 For he has not tried us with fire,
as he did them, to search their hearts,
nor has he taken revenge upon us;
but the Lord scourges those who draw near to him,
in order to admonish them."

(Judith 8:24-27)