There is a saying in French: “La reconnaissance de l’homme est la plus grande des politesses.” Roughly translated, it means: “Acknowledging another person [sic] is the greatest courtesy.”
There are many ways to acknowledge another person.
Caritas
You can acknowledge another person with a greeting, a nod, a wave, a salute, and many many other ways.
It seems though, we do a mediocre job acknowledging one another. We pass each other by, each in our own little cacoon…, because we’re too busy or too distracted to do otherwise.
If we are so mediocre at acknowledging others, it makes you wonder how well we practice the virtue of ‘charity’, which is a concern for, and active helping of, others.
In this fresco from the Middle Ages, which is in the Arena Chapel in Padua, Italy – Charity holds a basket of wonderfully painted fruit in the one hand, and with the other receives a heart handed to her by God the Father.
This fresco should serve to remind us, when our pride and our egos get too big, that all of our talents are on loan from above.
Since we were made in His image it would do well for us to acknowledge him in all we do–and then as Saint Augustine teaches: “pray as though everything depended on God, and work as though everything depended on us.”
It would be…, the greatest courtesy.
