Once I read a story about a child who received a gift in the presence of his mother.  The child did not say “thank you,” and the mother did not scold her child for not saying thank you. If his mother cared about the education of her child, she would have immediately asked him: “what should you say?” If her child was an educated child, he would immediately answer: “thank you.” The reflection of the journalist was: “Gratitude is one of the most appreciated and cultivated values in our society.” A person commenting on the article asked: “is gratitude a value or a virtue?”

If we consider gratitude as a value, maybe the article was correct. But if we consider gratitude as a virtue, gratitude is more than that and the lesson was not complete. We usually hear “well educated people are grateful.” Following this principle, we can say that an educated society is a grateful society. They consider gratitude as something worthy or meaningful, as a value that should be cultivated among its members.

However, it does not mean that the society has the virtue of gratitude. Gratitude as a virtue is a deep attitude and not something superficial. Superficial gratitude is not a virtue and can be seen in the lack of coherence between words and actions:  when people say “thank you” while their actions do not show that they are grateful. For example, a child who always says thank you and I love you when his parents give him things he likes, but he gets angry with them when they do something that he does not like. Is he behaving as a grateful person with his parents in this way?

In this child, gratefulness is more of a value than a virtue, and his gratitude and his love are a selfish reaction. That is why his gratitude is not strong enough for him to be patient with his parents when they do something that he does not like. Coherence between words and actions means that a grateful person tries to reciprocate or return with his actions that which was given to him as a gift. Therefore, if we really appreciate what was given to us, then we will try to pay back what we received, even though we cannot pay it back.

This virtue is an important virtue to have towards God. We usually say that we are grateful for the benefits we receive from God. However, often our actions do not show our gratitude and are not consistent with those words, when we do not try our best to give glory to God with our actions or when we do not try our best to fulfill His Will, or even worse, when we commit a sin rather than sacrificing our desires in order to be grateful children of God.