St. Ignatius never spoke very explicitly about virtues, but they are implicitly there as he lays out a path to personal growth and transformation. Probably the most foundational virtue that we can draw from St. Ignatius’ spirituality is gratitude. In fact, in a 1542 letter he wrote to Simão Rodrigues, one of the First Companions, he called ingratitude “the most abominable of sins”.

For Ignatius, ingratitude represented a fundamental disorder in our relationship with God and creation. This strong language reveals how central gratitude was to his spiritual worldview. One key observation is that in the Ignatian tradition, gratitude is always placed first.

Gratitude as First Movement

In the Principle and Foundation, Ignatius establishes that creation exists as gift, which immediately implies a giver and a receiver. This gift relationship forms the fundamental structure of reality in Ignatian spirituality.

Gratitude is placed at the beginning of the Examen, emphasising Ignatius’ theology of gift as primary. By beginning with thanksgiving, we establish the proper vantage point from which to view our entire day and relationship with God. In recognising God as the source of all gifts, gratitude becomes not just appreciation for things received but a doorway to relationship with the divine. Do I love God or do I just love God’s gifts?

From the Ignatian perspective, gratitude is the foundational virtue from which all other virtues flow. In his letter, Ignatius says that ingratitude “is a forgetting of the graces, benefits, and blessings received, and as such it is the cause, beginning, and origin of all sins and misfortunes.”

Healing the Primal Wound

When we look at the Genesis account, what lies at the heart of humanity’s first sin? It wasn’t merely disobedience, but a fundamental misunderstanding of relationship. Adam and Eve reached for what hadn’t been given, assuming scarcity rather than abundance. They believed God was withholding something essential from them.

This reaching, this taking instead of receiving, represents the opposite of gratitude. It’s a posture that says, “What I have isn’t enough. I must take more.” The serpent’s whisper—”God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened”—planted the seed of ingratitude by suggesting God’s gifts were incomplete.

Gratitude then becomes the movement that heals this primal wound. Where original sin involved turning away from God in distrust, gratitude turns us back toward God in recognition and acceptance. Each moment of genuine thankfulness acknowledges, “What you have given is enough. I receive it with open hands.” Does this not echo Ignatius’ Suscipe prayer of surrender, which says, all these gifts are yours, God, “Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me.”?

Think of how we experience this in everyday relationships. When we feel taken for granted, the relationship suffers. When appreciation flows freely, the relationship thrives. So it is with God. Gratitude doesn’t just make us feel better—it restores the proper order of our relationship with our Creator.

This is why Ignatius placed such emphasis on beginning the Examen with gratitude. He understood that thankfulness reorients us, positioning us correctly before God as recipients rather than takers.

The Latin word for grace—gratia—shares its root with gratitude. This etymological connection reveals a spiritual truth: gratitude completes the circle that grace initiates. Grace flows from God to us; gratitude flows from us back to God. Without this return movement, the circle remains broken.

When we cultivate the soil of gratitude in our hearts, other virtues naturally take root and flourish, each one drawing nourishment from this fundamental awareness of gift.

Virtues That Flow from Gratitude

Let me name three virtues that cannot exist authentically without gratitude:

Humility emerges naturally from a grateful heart, for to be truly thankful is to acknowledge that what we have comes not primarily from our own efforts. When I recognise that my talents, opportunities, and even my very existence are gifts rather than achievements, my perspective shifts. I see myself not as a self-made individual but as someone deeply interconnected and indebted. This isn’t the false humility of self-deprecation, but the genuine humility that comes from seeing reality clearly—we are recipients before we are creators. As Ignatius might put it, who are we that God should take notice of us? This question doesn’t diminish us; it properly places us within the web of relationship that gives our lives meaning.

Generosity flows spontaneously from gratitude like water from a spring. When I deeply understand that everything I possess is gift, clinging tightly makes little sense. Think of how differently we handle borrowed items versus those we believe we’ve earned. Gratitude helps us see that nothing is truly “ours” in the possessive sense—we are stewards rather than owners. This awareness loosens our grip and opens our hands to share. We become conduits rather than endpoints of God’s abundant giving. Notice how the most genuinely generous people you know are often deeply grateful people—their generosity isn’t forced but seems to bubble up from a wellspring of thankfulness for what they’ve received.

Joy takes root in the grateful heart because gratitude attunes us to goodness that might otherwise go unnoticed. When we practice thankfulness, we train our eyes to notice the fingerprints of grace in ordinary moments—the play of light through leaves, a moment of unexpected kindness, the taste of morning coffee. These are “thin spaces” where we encounter God’s presence. The joy that emerges isn’t the fleeting happiness of circumstance but a steady undercurrent of delight in being alive to receive each moment as gift. This joy sustains us even through difficulty, not because it denies pain but because it reminds us that pain never has the final word in a world created by Love.

Gratitude vs Negativity

I find it almost impossible to hold both gratitude and negativity at the same time. There seems to be something fundamentally incompatible about these states of mind. When genuine gratitude rises within us, the shadows of anxiety, bitterness, and fear somehow lose their grip. It’s not that thankfulness denies the existence of difficulty—rather, it shifts our relationship to it. The mental space occupied by worry becomes gradually reclaimed by awareness of gift.

When anxiety takes hold, we’re typically fixated on what might be lost, what might go wrong, or what we lack. Gratitude gently pulls us back to what is already here, what has been given, what sustains us even now. I’ve noticed in my own life that my most anxious moments coincide with forgetting to notice what’s been freely given. The antidote isn’t denying my legitimate worries but widening my field of vision to include the support—seen and unseen—that holds me even in uncertainty.

Try this exercise:

  1. Bring to mind a current frustration or worry. Notice its weight, its texture, how it feels in your body. Don’t rush to change it—just observe it with gentle attention.
  2. Now, bring to mind something for which you feel genuinely grateful. Perhaps it’s a relationship, a moment of beauty, or even simple provisions like shelter or clean water. Don’t choose something abstract—focus on something specific and real in your life.
  3. Try to hold both the frustration and the gratitude with equal intensity. Notice what happens. Most people find that one begins to overshadow the other.
  4. Intentionally deepen your focus on gratitude. Recall details, sensory experiences, and why this particular gift matters to you.
  5. Return attention to your initial worry. Has something shifted in your relationship to it? Not that it’s disappeared, but has its hold on your attention changed?

This simple practice reveals how gratitude and negativity compete for the same psychological space. They’re like two different lenses through which we view the same reality—and we can learn to choose which one dominates our vision.

This connects directly to what Ignatius calls spiritual consolation and desolation. In Ignatian discernment, we learn to recognize internal movements that either draw us toward God (consolation) or away from God (desolation). Gratitude serves as a reliable marker of consolation—it opens us to relationship, to receiving, to recognizing goodness beyond ourselves. When we struggle to feel grateful, it often signals some form of desolation at work.

Living from Gift

The inability to access gratitude might reveal where healing is needed or where we’ve become disconnected from our true selves as beloved creatures. By attending to these movements, gratitude becomes not just a virtue to cultivate but a kind of barometer of our spiritual health.

Gratitude reshapes how we move through the world. When communities cultivate shared thankfulness, they naturally develop different priorities than those founded on scarcity or entitlement. Environmental stewardship flows not from abstract duty but from genuine appreciation for the gift of creation. Social justice emerges not as ideology but as the natural response to recognizing that what we’ve received isn’t meant to be hoarded. The question shifts from “What am I entitled to keep?” to “How might these gifts flow through me to others?” Even our approach to consumption changes—we begin to ask not just “Can I afford this?” but “What is enough?” This changed stance comes from a heart that has learned to see everything as gift rather than possession.

We began by considering Ignatius’ striking claim that ingratitude is “the most abominable of sins.” What initially seems like harsh language reveals itself as profound insight—ingratitude doesn’t just overlook blessings but fundamentally disorders our relationship with reality itself. When we forget we are recipients before we are achievers, we miss the foundation upon which meaningful life is built. Gratitude isn’t simply one virtue among many but the soil from which all others naturally grow. This reverses the primal movement of grasping, replacing it with open hands ready to receive and share. In our anxious age, learning to cultivate thankfulness offers not just personal peace but a different way of being human together—one that reflects more clearly the gift-relationship at the heart of creation. Perhaps this is why Ignatius placed gratitude first in his spiritual practice — because it’s an orientation that makes all other growth possible.

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