Imagine yourself sitting alone on a favorite stretch of seashore. A stranger approaches along the beach. It is the Lord. As he approaches, you become aware of an expression on his face that makes it clear that his intention is to thank you for all that you do for him. How do you feel? What does Christ say?...

I watch the retreatant’s face carefully as I propose this meditation. The responses usually are strong. Some men and women find themselves at once on the verge of tears at the very idea of Christ showing gratitude to them. Others have a baffled look; the notion that Christ may want to thank them is simply unthinkable. Others become pensive, intrigued; they are intuitively aware that the meditation will take them into unexplored territory in their relationship with Christ.

Then they report what happened. Some people cannot go on with the meditation after the initial stage. Christ for them is the master of limitless demands. They are servants only doing their duty. Thanks do not enter in. But others, after initial resistance, consent to the meditation; they hear Christ naming one by one the good things they do for his Body, their neighbors, community and family. They hear their gifts named and affirmed with love. The intensity with which they feel appreciated in the prayer reveals unerringly the unsuspected existence within their hearts of a great empty space that was waiting to be filled.

I do not usually argue with those who protest that the idea of Christ wanting to express gratitude to us is fantastic and unwarranted. I simply ask them what they think of people who never thank anybody.

The Spirit allots to each one individually as the Spirit chooses graces and ministries from the great range of varieties of gifts. How little we know if we fail to realize that this kindling of gifts in us gives joy to the Spirit, that the nurturing of them is bliss to God and that every single manifestation of them makes the spirit-filled Christ within us freshly happy?

Suppose then we imagine our gifted selves as members of our inner society. The question arises whether these gifted selves are honored and encouraged or snubbed and denied. We will find the question closely linked with others: How good are we at recognizing and affirming others' gifts? How emancipated are we from jealousy and envy? How generous are we in giving thanks and praise to others? How sincere is our delight in what they do well?

The truth is that we will never be able to affirm in others what we put down in ourselves. Only if we experience Christ’s delight in what we do well through grace will we be able to participate with him in delighting in the different gifts of our sisters and brothers.

The most common mechanism for denying our gifts is to refuse to name or recognize them. Vast numbers of Christians refuse to recognize what gifts the Spirit within them is struggling to impart to them and develop towards the building up of the Body of Christ.

They use the formulaic protests of false modesty to cover their rejection of responsibility as gifted people -- “I am just an ordinary churchgoer, you see.” Or they adopt a critical stance that minimizes what they do and is quick to detect flaws and worms in the bud. Or they brush off praise and thanks, canceling others' words of appreciation with remarks like: “Oh, it’s nothing, really.”

Conventional piety says that most of us are in danger from pride and that we must repeatedly douse our hearts with the cold water of self-depreciation to keep us humble. Most people I meet are in much greater danger from the corrosion of self-doubt. Even those who boast really are compensating for a deep inner lack of belief in their own gifts.

These drenchings we administer to ourselves in the supposed interests of humility only worsen the rust and rot. True humility comes from allowing our own gifts to be affirmed properly. It comes from knowing that the gifts we have for the common good are gifts of the Spirit, not mere accidents, and that God delights in our using them and longs for us to hear the divine “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

True humility is the sense of our need for each other for completeness, that my gifts supplement yours, and his complements ours, and theirs make up what is wanting in those others.  True humility arises from the vision of our interdependence within the web of life.

In homeopathic medicine, the cure is effected by administering remedies that, given to a healthy person, would actually stimulate the symptoms of the disease in question. The cure of souls by the Spirit seems to use the same principle. Our symptoms are jealousy and envy and the chronic tendency to devalue the gifts of others and withhold our appreciation.

We seem “too full of ourselves.” The Spirit’s remedy is to pour into our hearts a deeper and richer sense of our own giftedness, since our pride is only a cover for misgivings and self-hatred. It is only when we really accept God’s appreciation of us and know ourselves to be gifted through the Spirit that we can communicate to others the same blessing.