For what reason, then, says Saint Luke the Physician, are people ungrateful? Why do they often repay good with evil, and not infrequently speak ill of their benefactors? What he says is frightening, yet it is truly correct.
"No enemy is more dangerous than an ungrateful person who has been benefited."
This saying is well known. No one, it says, is a more certain enemy than the ungrateful person whom you have helped. He is your most certain enemy. Not always, of course, but when the person remains unrepentant.
Why, then, are people ungrateful? Why do they so often repay good with evil and slander those who have done them good?
At the root of ingratitude, Saint Luke answers, lies selfishness. Those who receive a kindness often see nothing special in it. They regard it as something self-evident, natural, or even owed to them—that others should do them favors. They think highly of themselves. They give little thought or concern to others, considering that everyone is obliged to pay attention to them. Every good deed done for them they regard as insignificant and receive as something due to them.
There are also people, even more corrupted and proud, to whom a kindness is actually unpleasant—as strange as that may sound. Their ego is so great that they do not wish to humble themselves by asking for anything. Yet, says the Saint, when they are in need, they go and ask for help with bowed heads. But when they receive that help, instead of gratitude, anger and malice boil in their hearts. They are tormented by the fact that they were forced to ask for it and that a kind person was found who provided it. They do not think of thanking him.
This is the work of the devil. These are the passions. This is selfishness: instead of rejoicing and giving thanks, you become possessed by resentment and hatred for the good that another person does for you. Such people never think of thanking their benefactor.
Even more, sometimes their hearts become so hardened that the feeling of wounded pride and self-love gives birth to hatred toward the benefactor. This is the reaction of the selfish person, who considers it humiliating to receive a kindness.
*Hieromonk Savvas Agioritis (Homily, May 10, 2020)*