Thanksgiving Day
Reflection
“Gratitude is the memory of the heart”. It is the awareness that having come into this world with nothing, we have received everything. It is having eyes open to see the love of the family into which we were born and of the friends we have made. Gratitude enables us to live in wonder at the world revealed by our senses, the amazing capacity of our minds, the yearnings of our spirits, the richness of our own giftedness. It is the understanding that we live in this time, in this place, with these people and these blessings. Gratitude is much more than setting aside one day to be thankful. It is a way to experience life, to be constantly surprised, and to believe that all these good things come from the One who is the source of all. It is the ability to say “thank you” and to take nothing and no one for granted.
Prayer
Source of All, today we thank you for Earth, our home;For the wide sky and the blessed sun; for salt sea and running water;
For the everlasting hills; and the never resting windsWe thank you for our senses by which we hear the songs of the birds,And see the splendor of the summer fields, and taste of autumn fruits and rejoice in the feel of snow and the smell of the spring.Give us a heart wide open to all this beauty¸ and save us from being so blind that we pass unseeing that your creation is the first way we come to know you and your love, your generosity and your care for us. We thank you especially for having created us and given us to one another:
And we thank you for all who are no longer with us. Their love continues to live on in us and ours in them.
Lastly, we pray for those who have much less than we.
We pray believing You are with us now and forever. Amen
Action
In the midst of today’s celebration, find time to remember and give thanks. Try to live in the spirit of gratitude.
Suggested Reading
Always give thanks to God for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 5:20
You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you. Oh give thanks to the God who is good; for God’s steadfast love endures forever!
Psalm 118:28-29
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.
Meister Eckhart
To be a presence of perpetual thanksgiving may be the ultimate goal of life. The thankful person is the one for whom life is simply one long exercise in the sacred.
Joan Chittister
It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.
David Stiendl-Rast
Thanksgiving is the holiday of peace, the celebration of work and the simple life… a true folk-festival that speaks the poetry of the turn of the seasons, the beauty of seedtime and harvest, the ripe product of the year – and the deep, deep connection of all these things with God.
Ray Stannard Baker
If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.
W. Clement Stone
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Thanksgiving was never meant to be shut up in a single day.
Robert Caspar Lintner
Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.
Theodore Roosevelt
Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.
John Milton
Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality.
Maya Angelou
Nothing purchased can come close to the renewed sense of gratitude for having family and friends.
Benjamin Franklin
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Terri Guillemets