Gratitude: Is It A Virtue?

There are times that it feels as would, I imagine, a tsunami: Caught up with such power, force and hugeness that I feel walloped, almost annihilated, flattened by the sense of gratitude. Attending Mass yesterday at the Benedictine Monastery of the Risen Christ was like that. We had been discussing when we could get to the daily 11am Mass that is celebrated daily by this very small community of Benedictine monks we discovered in San Luis Obispo and yesterday worked perfectly.

The chapel lacks ostentation similarly to the many other Benedictine Abbeys we have joined in celebration of Mass; but the architecture of these Abbeys varies widely, from the simple, wooden, white clapboard structures of St. Benedict's Abbey in Still Water Massachusetts, to the impressive organ in the choir of Mt Angel Seminary and Abbey in Salem Oregon,

to a small, simple glass enclosed chapel of The Monastery of the Risen Christ overlooking the rolling hills of San Luis Obispo, California, that wave of gratitude begins to climb, carrying me with it each and every time for this is where I belong; these strangers whom I have never met, are my family.

Just like every emotion, this makes no sense at all for how can one feel that these strangers are family when never having met them, seen them, even known of their existence until suddenly we do know and we visit and we know, recognize this as home, this place we have never seen before?

And so today in thinking about gratitude, I have wondered if perhaps it is not an emotion at all; if it may be a virtue. Gratitude is not listed among the virtues of our faith- we are taught of the Cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance and of the theological virtues of hope, faith and charity. Gratitude is unlisted among them.

But here is how the Catholic Catechism defines human virtue:
Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life. The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good.

If then, gratitude is in fact a virtue, it explains the tsunami of sensibility that defies mere adjectives like thanks, joy and happiness that descends on me at these times... and other unexpected times as well, the sudden appearance of something unexpected, something beautiful, to which the only possible response is wordless awe at such mystery and majesty.