![](\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_dmDaLWNETzg\/Sx2vmoQNUJI\/AAAAAAAAAoI\/_Ve7wIg-5zA\/s200\/Chesterton9\")
<\/a>Think of the many forms of \u201chappiness\u201d you experience that don\u2019t involve gratitude: the quick satisfaction of appetite; the thrill or enchantment of virtually every kind of electronic visual entertainment; a flattering word from someone you don\u2019t care about. <\/p>\nNow think of other moments that do contain gratitude at their core: realizing how much you have been loved and supported by a parent or spouse; watching a sunset or listening to a concerto and realizing that life is a gift and that Whoever created it is worthy of all praise; or feeling the burden lifted from your shoulders following a good confession and thanking God for the sacrament.<\/p>\n
The criterion of happiness Chesterton offers is so simple: Do you feel gratitude?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Later this evening, I thought that maybe this seven-word thought might also hold the key to the most difficult door of all: forgiveness. The Lord\u2019s Prayer makes us a hard offer: We will be forgiven to the extent that we forgive others. Right now, in my life, although on balance I probably have far more to be forgiven myself, I am struggling with the difficulty of forgiving someone else. The offense against me, which was very real, occurred a long time ago, but I have become aware of just how hard it is to let go of.<\/p>\n
If I can see reasons for gratitude even in this terrible offense, however; if I can thank God for what this offense taught me and is teaching me and even now is leading me toward\u2014it seems that I might even be able to come to a new attitude toward the offender. I might be able to thank that person for helping bring me to a new place, a new understanding in my life.<\/p>\n
One sentence from Chesterton alone, double-underlined and circled as it is in my book, is not going to work this magic by itself. The work is still mine to do. But at least I see a new avenue worth trying, a new path that might just lead to real forgiveness.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Posted by Webster\u00a0G. K. Chesterton can be a chore, the way he piles one analogy, one alliterative turn of phrase on another. But there are golden needles in his haystack. Today, I was plowing through Orthodoxy, chapter 4, \u201cThe Ethics of Elfland,\u201d when I came upon a statement that stopped me cold: \u201cThe test of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n