HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Honor God’s name!
Acknowledge God’s presence!
Prepare God’s way!
Probe God’s messages!
Yes, know that God is always speaking Truth, seeking Truth, and inviting us to Truth!

The Lord is King!

Halleluiah!
Always present is my God! Halleluiah!
Now and forever near to those who seek Him,
Knowing my comings and goings and my thoughts from afar!
Sound the trumpet! God is near!  Halleluiah!
Give glory and honor and praise to God’s holy name!
In times of darkness and of light, in sorrow and in joy, in life and in death
Verify that God is God,
Invisible and infinite,
Never far from the brokenhearted is our
God and Savior!

In today’s first reading, Rev. 4: 1-11, we are told that there are creatures before the throne of God who, day and night, praise God, saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.”

The author of the book of Revelation sits in awe of who God is.  Awe is a form of praise. It is also humility, a holy respect of self, God and the other.  Praise draws us closer to God and God to us. Authentic praise of self and others creates intimacy.  Praise sanctifies us, cast out negativity and fills us with positive energy (cf. The Word among Us, November 2012, p. 40).  When we genuinely praise another, it has the same effect.  Praise is the antithesis of sin in us.  The author of the meditation for Nov. 21, 2012 in The Word among Us, p. 40, writes:

                “To understand this truth, reflect on these words of Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa,

               preacher to the papal household:

                 ‘Praise is, par excellence, anti-sin. If, as St. Paul has said, the

                             mother-sin is impiety, that is a refusal to glorify and thank
                             God, then the exact opposite to sin is not virtue but praise!....’”

It behooves us each day to develop the art of gratitude. We might do that at the end of each day by asking ourselves the following questions:  for what today am I grateful? What today has my spouse, my children, my co-workers, my fellow religious done that has been music to my ears, put a song in my heart and lifted my spirit? Keeping a gratitude journal, so to speak, will change your life!  Expressing gratitude--looking for the good each person in your life does each day--will also change the environment in which you life.

Living a life filled with love and gratitude

In today’s first reading, Eph 4: 32-5:8, St. Paul asks us to “[b]e kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ…[L]ive in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us…Immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be mentioned among you, as is fitting among holy ones, no obscenity or silly or suggestive talk, which is out of place, but instead, thanksgiving.”  What if I consistently lived thankfully, looking for that in any other person for which I could sincerely say “Thank you.”  What if I looked for things for which I sincerely said to the person I live with each day: “I truly appreciated….”  As a former parent trainer, I recall the first lesson of Commonsense Parenting, which encouraged parents to look for things for which to praise their children and/or affirm their efforts to do well and to do so consistently every day.  Of course, there were other skills parents needed to practice, such as setting limits, following through with consequences for unacceptable behaviors, which transformed the family situation tremendously. 

So, what if I were a truly grateful person instead of a critical one? What if, instead of concentrating on what I don’t like, I would spend my energy focusing on what I do like about myself, about others, about anything and everything!  Yes, what if I lived in love as Christ loves me and handed himself over for me (cf. Eph. 4: 33). Perhaps I would be so busy looking for ways to be for the other and ways of easing the burdens of life, that I would readily notice others bent over by life’s hardships, as Jesus noticed the woman in today’s Gospel unable to straighten up for 18 years. Without a word from her or even eye contact, Jesus healed her, touched her with the compassion of God.  He did not see an elderly, weak, crippled woman  but a human being held in high esteem by her God and worthy of love and compassion, a person whose self-esteem needed to be restored and whose brokenness needed to be made whole.  The same opportunities are given to each of us each day. How am I going to respond?

Forgiveness, Love, Gratitude

Today's Gospel, Lk 7: 36-50, tells the story of Jesus' dining in the house of a Pharisee named Simon. Simon is putting on a dinner for the elite--a dinner in our day known as a black-tie dinner that is only open to invited guests who are expected to be wearing tuxedoes. In walks a woman Simon despises and says to himself in effect: How can Jesus allow this woman to anoint His feet, wash them with her tears and wipe them with her hair. Does He not know "what sort of woman she is" (Lk: 7: 39)? He also looks down upon Jesus and says in his heart: If this man is a prophet, He should know better than to allow this woman to come close to Him, much less touch Him (cf Luke 7:39:).

 Our prayer, based on this Scripture passage, might go like this:

"Lord, You sent this morning's Word to transform my innermost being, as You tried, in today's Gospel, to open Simon's heart. Help me. Transform my self-righteousness into the humility of this woman who recognized her sinfulness and is grateful for Your gift of forgiveness. May I step down from my pedestal of looking down on people as the Pharisee looked down upon this woman. I, too, am a sinner. I belong prostrate before You beating my breast, not on the stage tooting my horn and certainly not judging others or excluding them from my company."

 

A hymn of gratitude

Lord, thank you for this past week:
for all that I understood and did not understand;
for that which threw me for a loop,
and that which made my heart soar with hope and faith and love.

Thank you, Lord, for all that was a challenge,
all that presented opportunities for spiritual growth
and aliveness in the Spirit.

Thank you, Lord, for deepening my faith in You
and for the invitations to humility and trust and
genuine love—a love that runs deep, like underground rivers,
that its activity is not seen by the naked eye,
in short, the kind of love I now know existed
in my mother and father
and is being emulated by so many in this world.

Lord, thank You for this week ahead;
its hopes,
its opportunities,
its challenges,
its potential learnings,
the possibilities of new discoveries!

Give me the courage this coming week
to ponder as Mary did,
to repent as Peter did,
to love as Mary of Magdalen did,
to go into the tomb as You did and rise renewed,
to die to that in me that needs to die
for new life to emerge,
to rise with You to new ways
of thinking and loving, being and doing.

May I step up to the plate this week, Lord,
to become the woman you are calling me to become,
to let my light shine in a world of darkness,
to let my love grow in the toughness of life,
as do blades of grass and small shrubs from mountain sides.

Yes, Lord, may I be more like you at the end of this week
than I am at its beginning.