By Fr. Georgios Lekkas
‘And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks.’ Luke XVII, 15-16.
We enter into a relationship with God either through affliction or ‘without shedding blood’. Through affliction, when we turn to Him in the midst of our calamity, and bloodlessly, when we thank Him for a favor He has granted us.
We are more united with God by thanksgiving than by entreaty, because in entreaty we usually set greater store on our request than on our relationship with the One who grants it. In thanksgiving, however, our desire to turn back and thank Him, in our joy at the fulfillment of our request, bears witness to the fact that having a personal relationship with the One who has fulfilled our desire counts for us at least as much as the fulfillment of our request.
Of course, our entreaty also unites us with God, because even in calamity it is always possible that we might ignore Him and fail to implore Him, but through thanksgiving, we are united with Him still more, for in thanksgiving there is no longer a pressing need for the fulfillment of the specific request which prompted our entreaty to Him. A ‘spiritual law’ seems to be at work here, according to which the more freely we move towards God, the more Grace we receive from Him.
Thanksgiving requires faith, humility, and, at an even more advanced stage, love. Faith that the Triune Lord of Glory has performed the miracle, rather than it being merely a natural coincidence; humility before the infinite mercy of God who consents to act even in our darkness; love for such a God who seeks the smallest chink that He might come and dwell in us, and even when we do not offer one to Him, he searches for a way to create it, as discreetly as possible.
Thanksgiving thus functions as a great spiritual channel for the transfusion of Divine Life within us. A soul that begins to taste the spiritual fruits of thanksgiving will desire thanksgiving for its own sake and not because of the joy it feels at the fulfillment of the request which at some point gave rise to it. Because if thanksgiving requires faith, humility, and sometimes love, the joy of thanksgiving constantly increases faith, humility, and love, to such an extent that eventually one wishes to live only in order to be thankful.
The joy of thanksgiving is so much greater than the joy we derive from the fulfillment of any of our requests that it is possible for a person to wish to live not only to be thankful for the divine gifts they themselves receive, but also for all the divine gifts that all people have received, receive, or will ever receive, both knowingly and especially unknowingly, along with the whole of Creation, till the end of the Universe as we know it.
In this case, man is open to the supreme Openness which is God himself. God nourishes him spiritually with a divine aura, like a stream that permeates him entirely and which has its source in the Divine Openness. God is the Openness of Love, and as such He created and He continues to love His own works.
Man is called to respond to God’s Openness with the openness of his own thanksgiving, which prepares him for enduring openness, equivalent to that of the ‘heavenly incorporeal powers’, who live to glorify the Triune Lord of Glory without ceasing, not only for what He did or does but above all for what He is.
18.1.2022. Feast of St Athanasius the Great and St Cyril, Patriarchs of Alexandria.
Protopresbyter Dr. Georgios Lekkas is a priest of the Orthodox Archdiocese of Belgium. He studied Law, Philosophy, and Theology at the University of Athens. He has a Ph.D. in Greek Studies from the Sorbonne (Paris IV) and was a postdoctoral researcher at the French National Research Agency. He taught Greek philosophy in Greek Higher Education between 2005-2017. His latest poetry collection, PROSECHOS ANAGENNISI (IMMINENT REBIRTH) was recently published by To Koinon ton Oraion Technon (Athens, 2021, p.79).
