“My dear friends, our Lord Jesus Christ is the only person on earth and in heaven who is sufficiently thankful to God, His Father. We on our own can never reach that pinnacle of thankfulness. But God has given us a solution for our inadequacy. He has given us the opportunity to unite with Christ in His ascendancy to the Father during the Divine Liturgy so that our thankfulness can obtain the attributes of Christ’s thankfulness and thereby become adequate. This only points out to the great value of participating properly in the Divine Liturgy and receiving the Divine Body and Blood of Christ. Doing this, the Eucharist becomes our personal Eucharist, which means we truly become thankful people by sharing the thankfulness of Christ. The Divine Liturgy is the only place where this can happen—nowhere else! I believe that the thankfulness of the one leper who returned to the Lord to be with Him after he was healed was blessed by the Lord to share in the Lord’s thankfulness and thereby be adequate and work toward his salvation. Let us be like that one grateful leper and always thankful to Almighty God who grants His gifts. For everything good in our lives we owe to Him. Not only for our material goods, but also for our spiritual They are worth much more.“- Newsletter of All Saints Monastery NY