This is from the book, "COMPASSION" by Henri J.M. Nouwen, Donald P. McNeill, and
Douglas A. Morrison, 1983.
These three authors are catholic priests.

If I (or anyone) read the writing without knowing who wrote it,
I feel like it was written by a person in Budhistic  philosophy.

Of course, when the religious faith reaches the highest area, they all come together
into the same or similar conclusion about the life and the society.

If the kings (or the presidents and the politicians) or religious leaders rule the society
even and fair, the people underneath may be able to live with nothing but gratitude.
But in reality, it doesn't work like that.
Through the old or new modern society, there always are masters and slaves.
In old days, people used to live under absolute ruler and they were asleep as slaves,
but nowadays, people are all wide awake and realize that there's no such  absolute power.
And everyone want to be the master.
Thus, angers and revolutions have to happen....

I wish we can all live with gratitude and nothing else.
We can always hope and pray but chances are it will never happen.

Thanks, Webmaster, for your comments.
These are only a small piece of their statements in the book which all of us
can stop and meditate on.

I'd like to quote a comment on the book by the publisher in the below.

"In this provocative essay on that least understood virtue, compassion,
the authors challenge themselves and us with these questions:
Where do we place compassion in our lives? Is it enough to live a life in which
we hurt one another as little as possible? Is our guiding ideal a life of
maximum pleasure and minimum pain? This book, Compassion, answers no.

.... They place compassion at the heart of a Christian life in a world governed
far too long by principles of power and destructive control.
Compassion, no longer merely an eraser of human mistakes, is a force
of prayer and action - the expression of God's love for us and our love
for God and one another.
The book, Compassion, is a book that says no to a compassion of guilt and
failure and yes to a compassionate love that pervades our spirit and
moves us to action.
Heri Nouwen, Donald McNeill, and Douglass Morrison have written a moving
document on what it means to be a Christian in a difficult time."

"One of the greatest temptations of life is to become resentful.
Resentment is the opposite of gratitude. The world is full of resentment.
What is resentment? Cold anger. Anger turned inward.
We say, 'I'm angry at this. This is not the way I want it.'
Things do not turn out as expected, and we resent it.
The older we get, the more chances we have to be resentful ...."
(from the book, "Spiritual Direction" by Henri Nouwen)

Compassionate actions happen when we move from
resentment to gratitude. "Gratitude basically means to receive the gifts
of God and others - to say thank you."
"Can you be grateful for everything that has happened in your life -
not just for the good things but for all that has brought you to this day?"