We observe with profound distress that this ignorance concerning gratitude constitutes yet another proof of the corruption which the Orthodox ecclesiastical ethos has undergone, owing to the influence of a worldly mentality. Such a mentality leads man, a rational creature fashioned according to the image of God, into behavior that is more irrational than that of irrational animals. Is this characterization perhaps exaggerated? I shall let a Patristic text provide us with the answer. This text relates a very charming, moving, and instructive event, which speaks for itself and introduces us to the important issue of gratitude.
A hyena, having a blind whelp, took it in her mouth and delivered it to St. Makarios of Alexandria. She pushed open the hatch of his dwelling with her head, went inside, and threw her whelp at his feet. St. Makarios picked it up and ascertained that it was blind. He spat on its eyes and prayed; the whelp then immediately opened its eyes. After suckling it, its mother took it and departed.
On the following day, the hyena brought St. Makarios the hide of a large sheep. The Saint looked at it and said to her: Where did you find this? You must have eaten a sheep. And so, since it is the result of an injustice, I will not accept it from you. The hyena then bowed her head, knelt, and left the hide at the Saint’s feet.
The Saint said to her: I tell you, I will not accept it, unless you swear to me that you will never again cause distress to poor folk by eating their sheep. At this, she nodded her head, as if to agree with St. Makarios. The Saint then accepted the hide which the hyena had [in gratitude-Trans.] brought him.2
Let us now attempt to approach, as succinctly as possible, the theological foundations of gratitude as an indispensable hallmark of human nature. Orthodox Tradition teaches us that man is a eucharistic being, that is, a rational creature who exists in an unceasing communion of love (agape) with his Creator and is oriented towards Him with an insatiable disposition of gratitude, thanksgiving, and doxology. Man has this innate capacity for love and thanksgiving because he is fashioned according to the image and likeness of God;3 it is precisely for this reason that he bears the seal of gratitude indelibly within himself. God freely created man out of His exceeding goodness, in order that man might participate in Divine Goodness; and the Lord created beneficently so that His creatures, the recipients of this beneficence, might gratefully commune with Him, offer thanksgiving and glory to Him, and thus become partakers of Divine glory. The desire to glorify God, says St. Basil the Great, is by nature implanted in all rational creatures.4 St. John of Damascus, in a summary of Patristic teaching on this subject, makes these telling remarks:
Since, therefore, God, Who is good, and preëminently good, was not satisfied with contemplation of Himself, but in His exceeding goodness willed that certain things should come into existence which would enjoy His benefits and participate in His goodness, He brought all things, both invisible and visible, out of non-being into being and created them—including man, who is a compound of the visible and the invisible.5
In connection with this, it should be firmly emphasized that we become fully aware of this loving, grateful, and eucharistic nature of man in the sacred Mystery of Divine Communion. What takes place here? In this Divine Mystagogy, we have a foretaste of the eschatological glory of Deified human nature in the sanctified atmosphere of thanksgiving and doxology to God; in the Liturgy, there is revealed to us the fulfillment of the Kingdom of Heaven—that is, the communion of God with His rational creatures in the glorified Body and Blood of the God-Man, Christ the Savior—and we experience this fulfillment in our lives.
