A recent arrival in heaven was being shown round by St Peter. The two of them passed a large number of buildings, all of which were full of angels. St Peter stopped in front of one of them and said to the newcomer, “This is one of the sections for receiving and answering prayers of petition. They stepped inside and there seemed to be thousands of angels opening, classifying and answering the enormous volume of petitions, which had been left at the reception area of this huge sorting office

They continued walking until they came to the second building, once inside St Peter explained that this was the packing and posting section, where all the graces and blessings prayed for were dispatched. There seemed to the newcomer as many angels working in here as there were in the first building.

Finally, in a corner all by itself, they came to a much smaller building, which looked rather like a small town post office, they entered and to his surprise, he saw only one angel working in here and from the looks of it, he didn’t seem to have much to do. “Tell me” said the puzzled man, “What happens in this building?” “You would hardly believe it” said St Peter, “But this is where we receive all the prayers of thanksgiving, for prayers and petitions that have been answered. People either forget, or don’t even bother to thank God for his graces any more, they are all far too busy living their own hectic lives.” Do we sometimes neglect to thank God for our blessings? Most of us would be slow to admit it, but we can all be a bit miserly in our thanks to God.