What is gratitude? Describe it in not more than five words…. You think, you’re done and over with your English class? Haha! Not yet. Not at all. For a Jesuit, it is a part of your life when you become a member of this least yet universal Society!

More than two hundred years ago, a student was asked that question. His answer is still remembered today:

“Gratitude is the memory of the heart.”

The student’s name was Jean Massieu. He was deaf. At a time when deaf people were often denied an education, one priest believed in him, taught him, and opened a new world to him.

Years later, Massieu became a teacher himself. He never forgot the gift he had received. Why? Because gratitude is “the memory of the heart.”

And if there is one person in Scripture who truly understood this, it was Mary and her Immaculate Heart.

In today’s Gospel, Mary and Joseph witnessed something significant at the Presentation of Jesus. They do not fully understand Simeon’s words. Yet, Luke tells us in another Gospel: ‘His mother kept all these things in her heart”.

Mary’s Immaculate Heart teaches us three simple movements of a grateful heart: Remember. Reflect. Respond.

Remember. It says she remembered. She remembered the angel’s message. She remembered Bethlehem. She remembered the shepherds. She remembered Simeon’s prophecy. She remembered this mysterious moment in the Temple.

Reflect. Mary did not simply collect memories as we would in our Google photo storage or in instagram, FB, X, or even Zalo. She carried them in her heart. She prayed with them. She allowed God to reveal their meaning little by little.

Respond. Mary eventually said her fiat despite not fully knowing everything. Let it be done to me according to your word. The same movement appears in the first reading. Elijah throws his cloak over Elisha. It is God’s call. Elisha leaves his oxen, says farewell to his family, and follows.

A grateful heart does not cling. A grateful heart responds. Mary remembered and responded.

Elisha remembered and responded.

Jean Massieu remembered and responded.

Perhaps that is also the purpose of formation. Not simply to receive.

But to remember so deeply that one day we become for others what others have been for us.

As I celebrate my last Mass with you, I thank God for many things. Not primarily for classes, activities, or programs, but for people. For shared meals and stories. For brotherhood.

For you, young men passionately seeking Christ. For friendships formed. For generosity shared. For magnanimity lived out in the ordinary. For the Jesuit community who truly lives out what it means to be Men on Mission. Friends in the Lord. For the many ways God has been at work among you.

Like Mary, I hope to keep these things in my heart because the heart is not a storage room. It is a workshop. What the heart remembers, the life eventually becomes. Mary remembered Christ, and her life became a lifelong yes. Elisha remembered his call, and his life became a prophetic mission. Jean Massieu remembered his teacher, and he became a teacher for the deaf, himself.

May we remember God’s goodness so deeply that our lives become our response.

Remember. Reflect. Respond.

For what the heart remembers, the life eventually becomes.