NOTES for Col 3:17

If everything is to be done in the name of the Lord, the word "everything" receives certain limits. Can one do, in word or deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, nasty things? Can one kill, steal, commit adultery, bear false witness?! The very striving to do something in the name of the Lord already helps us in life, because obviously wrong decisions are cast aside, decisions incompatible not with some formal rules but with the very person of Jesus.

Gratitude to God is, in general, the foundation of foundations of Christian life. It is precisely in thanksgiving that we are farthest from opposing Him; we do not merely accept His will as if there were nowhere else to go, but joyfully agree that it is good for us. The fullness of human, filial gratitude has already been expressed in the Eucharist, in the prayer and sacrifice of thanksgiving of Jesus Christ, and therefore our greatest "thank you" is union with Him and thanksgiving through Him.