St. Mary of the Assumption

Maple Park, Illinois

November 2018 Parish Calendar

  

December 2018 Parish Calendar

 

Thanks be to God

The great religious traditions teach that gratitude is a hallmark of spiritual maturity and a quality to be cultivated through spiritual disciplines.

People who describe themselves as either religious or spiritual are more likely to be grateful than those who describe themselves as neither.

For a person of faith, gratitude is a glad acknowledgement of God’s generosity. Gratitude is an ethic that is deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian doctrine and religion. The word thanks and its various cognates appear over 150 times in the Old and New Testaments. The imperative to give thanks appears thirty-three times. The Jewish and Christian scriptures insist that God’s people, whoever they are and wherever they are and whatever they face, are to be a grateful people, a people filled with praise and with thanksgiving to God.

Of all the gifts that God provides, for the Christian nothing compares with the gift of eternal life made possible by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Gratitude is a novel way of seeing. It is a stance, a posture, a way of positioning oneself so that one is attuned to the gifts that come one’s way. It is never too late to start reaping the benefits of grateful living.

As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this week I offer some thoughts for your consideration.  I trust that each of us will have an enjoyable day on Thursday.

Be thankful for the grace of the Catholic Church in your life.  The Catholic Church is the Christian community which contains the fullness of what Jesus came to bring us.  We recognize that the grace of God is present throughout the world, and that God is not restricted to showering His love and goodness only to Catholics. Other Christian communities are “separated brethren,” as the Second Vatican Council addressed them.  They each lack something of the fullness of the “one, holy, Catholic and apostolic” Church which we profess in the Creed, but there is no doubt that God is present in their lives in many ways.  We often observe sadly the description of St. Augustine about people of the Church: “ There are wolves within and sheep without.”

Be thankful for your families and friends.  The British Catholic author G. K. Chesterton said with great insight, “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”  Although families differ in the ways that they function, I’m confident in saying there are no perfect families and no totally bad families.  Each one of us is unique, and so there will at time be conflicts and disagreements because we see the world through our own eyes.  But honesty compels us to admit that none of us are self-made; the people in our lives, especially our families and friends—and yes, our enemies—have some part in how we become who we are.  Their love motivates us to the good we achieve, and their opposition helps us evaluate the experiences which shape us.

Be thankful for the good times and the bad times in your life.  St. Augustine said, “ Since God is the highest good, he would not allow any evil to exist in his works unless his omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.” The good times in our lives help us appreciate that we are truly loved by God, and the bad times remind us that we live in an imperfect world which cannot give us what only God can give.  Reflect sometimes on the good which has come into the world out of something we would not consider as good: for example, Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing as a young girl, became a person who brought about so much good to the lives of other deaf and blind people who would otherwise have had no hope for a satisfying life.  And of course, the great example is the sign of our Faith: the crucified Jesus, through whose passion and death came the gift of eternal life.

I hope that all who read this will attend Mass on Thanksgiving Day, for the very name “Eucharist” means “thanksgiving.”  If Thanksgiving has any real meaning at all, it should be a roaring “shout-out” to God for all his blessings, and there is no better place to do it than the act of worship which is at the heart of our salvation.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, ALL!