Many years ago when I was a young bishop, one of the pastors here in Cincinnati asked me to come and celebrate Mass for his schoolchildren on the day before Thanksgiving. Before presenting a formal homily, I decided to engage in a bit of dialogue with the children. I asked them to tell me one thing for which they were thankful. Each student could only speak once, and each student could only name one thing, and nobody could repeat what had already been mentioned.

The results were gloriously varied: My mom. My dad. My little brother. My goldfish. That my grandma's surgery was successful. That we won the soccer game last week. That we're having pumpkin pie tomorrow. That the bishop is here for Mass with us. They went on and on, until I decided that it was time to end the expressions of thanks and move into the homily proper.

The lesson that presented itself to the adults in the congregation was multiple. For one thing, the children taught us that you can never run out of things to be grateful for. Right up to the end there were hands raised, children who had something else to mention. They also taught us that there is nothing too banal, too insignificant to elicit gratitude: dogs, goldfish, soccer games - all are worthy of mention in a litany of thanksgiving, together with parents and brothers and sisters. Then, too, the responses of the children taught us that being grateful is something that seems to come easily to the believer. The children had not been told to prepare something to say. As soon as the invitation was given, the responses were immediate. Their gratitude seemed effortless.

Why is this so? First of all, because gratitude is a response to God's goodness and God never stops being good and kind and generous to us. At every moment the life of Christ flourishes in us through grace. At every moment that same life of Christ keeps us in touch with other believers throughout the world. Flowers bloom and birds sing and the sun rises and sets every single day. There is always plenty to be thankful for as long as we make the minimal effort to pay attention to what God is doing all around us.

Next, there is no level of importance that determines what we should be grateful for. It is not just things of a certain size and significance that qualify for our gratitude. Galaxies and atoms, elephants and ladybugs, rocket scientists and newborn infants: they all call out for our gratitude and appreciation because they are all the products of God's love and care. Everything that exists is the result of God's will at work. Consequently everything - and everyone - is an appropriate subject for thanksgiving, an appropriate reason to acknowledge God's wisdom and goodness.

But what about suffering and pain and burdens we don't seem to deserve? What about bad things? We'll be saying something about that later on in our series. Suffice it to say for now that even these things can be reasons for gratitude if we know how to approach them.

Finally, gratitude is not something that calls for intense effort and concentration. You don't have to set a special time aside to offer thanks to God. You don't have to put together a special menu of reasons to be grateful. All you have to do is pay attention. You have to notice the blessings around you. You have to accustom yourself to being attentive to the numberless ways in which God is busy in your life. Once you get in the habit of noticing the goodness of God, responding to it becomes ever easier. We'll have more to say about the practice of gratitude in our next article.

What, then, are we supposed to be grateful for? We are supposed to be grateful for everything simply because God is involved in everything and God's involvement carries only goodness with itself. It's never inappropriate to be grateful, since there is no context, no situation in which God is not hard at work loving us and caring for us. Everything is God's handiwork and therefore everything calls for appreciation and gratitude.

God is the God of mountains and canyons as well as the God of city streets and back alleys. God created jimson weed as well as roses. God created every race and nation. God created every individual human being, both those whose achievements evoke our admiration and those who don't seem to be of much use for anything. They are all God's creatures and therefore they all clamor for acknowledgment and gratitude and respect from us. There is nothing that is simply unworthy of our attention because there is nothing that is unconnected with the Lord.

For what should we offer God thanks? There are no limits for grateful believers.