THANKSGIVING IS THANKSLIVING –
We don’t have to be taught how to whine, gripe and complain. These tendencies come natural to us. Unless we are on guard, we can spend precious time moping about what we can’t do, what we used to be able to do, and or about missed opportunities. If we give in to this inclination, we can become miserable within ourselves and come across to others in a depressing manner.
Regardless of the circumstances of our lives, God’s reconciling love for us in Jesus Christ frees us to embrace what we have to offer others and thus for being grateful. The foremost gift that we can offer others is that of our best selves. Our inclination to sin can lead us to be down on ourselves. We sin as we wander away from the Lord, the Source of all that we are and have. What a treasure we are offered in the Sacrament of Reconciliation! As in the light of our Lord’s healing love, we acknowledge specific ways in which we have hurt ourselves, others, the environment and the Lord, we open ourselves to receive His merciful forgiveness. As we make the forgiveness of sins our own, this will influence the way we see ourselves. We will be able to take to heart the assurance that we are important first and foremost because we are loved by the Lord. We don’t have to be like others.
As we see ourselves first and foremost in relation to the Lord and then in the Lord in relation to one another, we will grow in the ability to come across to those with whom we live and associate as one who brings out the best in them. We will be an enabling presence. Others will be uplifted as a result of being around us.
As persons who are taking to heart the importance of God’s love for ourselves, we will grow in the ability to appreciate the importance of praying for others. Prayer enables us to see those for whom we pray as the Lord sees them. We will want for persons for whom we pray no more or no less than what the Lord wants for them. Prayer enables us to be proactive in relating to others. Apart from prayer, many of us have good intentions in regard to others, but we don’t follow through on them. Prayer gives us that needed nudge to carry out the good intentions that we have. For example, we can receive the strength to make contact with another, to visit someone, to listen to one who is hurting, to offer to help someone with a specific task, to welcome persons who are new in the settings in which we find ourselves.
Through prayer, we can receive the wisdom and strength to step into the background in relation to specific others when this is needed for their well-being. As our relationships with others are influenced by prayer, we will not smother or suffocate others with our well-intentioned concern for them. We will want them to become more and more what the Lord wants them to become as a result of their being around us.
As we come to Thanksgiving Day, I hope and pray that we will want to focus our attention upon what we can do and offer for others as long as we are living on this side of death. As we direct our time and energy upon relating to others as the Lord wants us to do this, we will come across to persons as a breath of fresh air in the Lord, and we will experience a growing sense of gratitude in the Lord that no one or nothing will be able to take from us.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Nelson Beaver – Pastor