Article June 4, 1949 Issue

Introducing a system of impregnable defense

OPERATION GRATITUDE

EMILE ORMANN

Military operations are often designated by code names that may be understood by the maneuvers with which they are identified. The Christian Scientist, in his warfare against error, becomes familiar with "Operation Gratitude." And he soon recognizes that the practice of gratitude is among the most important methods at his disposal by which he can overcome and vanquish the many problems which claim reality.

What is gratitude? Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes on page 3 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "Are we really grateful for the good already received? Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessings we have, and thus be fitted to receive more. Gratitude is much more than a verbal expression of thanks. Action expresses more gratitude than speech." So we see that gratitude is not an attitude, but an activity of divine Mind.

To continue in the military metaphor, we remember that the French word for gratitude, reconnaissance, is extensively used in warfare for operations designed to find out the location, the strength, and the intention of the adversary. It is impossible to think of material warfare without reconnaissance. In our spiritual warfare, gratitude becomes a way of reconnoitering which leads to victory, because it recognizes the power of spiritual facts and the impotence of the distortions and misrepresentations of material appearances.

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