If gratitude is the sentiment the undeserving feel towards the deserving, then a sense of gratitude is in a way a sense of one's undeservedness.
Gratitude is the positive manifestation of what otherwise would have been experienced entirely as a negative sentiment (this sense of undeservedness), which the receiving of a gift was not meant to invite, and which, if that negative sentiment were all that were possible, would make the giving of a gift a futile exercise.
Gratitude therefore enables grace. It lifts the burden of the receipt of beneficence and propels it forward either in time or to others.
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