What are you thankful for?
In amongst the football, turkey, and shopping, Americans do try spend at least part of their Thanksgiving being grateful.
I have a lot to be thankful for; wonderful marriage, loving wife, respectful children, beautiful family, good parish, plus the whole triangle from security on up on Maslow’s hierarchy.
But I have to be honest about what I am the most thankful for.
I want to be a good man. Patient. Strong. Loving. Capable. I want to be a good man, but I’m not. This is not false modesty. I know that I am occasionally all of those things, but my overall condition remains selfish and weak. I’ve tried all kinds of things; philosophy, sports, karate, meditation… you name it. They help on the margins, but the heart that those margins surround remains broken.
I also want good for those whom I love. I would love to be a source of that good. It kills me to see others suffer, but everyone does. Everyone. And forgetting about my role in their pitiful condition for a moment, they are no more capable of addressing the fundamental problems in their hearts and in this world than I.
It’s a real mess. The world groans in agony, and humanity groans with it.
So what am I thankful for? I am thankful that God saw our suffering and emptied Himself so that through His Christ we can all be healed. Through Him we can be good because He is good; be patient because He is patient; be strong because He is strong; be loving because He is loving; be capable because He is capable. It need no longer be I who live, but He who lives in me. Through Him I am growing into the man I am meant to be. Through Him mankind is saved. Through Him, we become part of that salvation.
This would be impossible on our own, but through Him, all things are possible.
There is no greater gratitude than the dying man who has been given a new life; without God, we are dying the spiritual death, but through Him – and especially through His Body and Blood – we are healed.
This perspective makes everything else bearable. More than that, it makes every moment a joy. And it makes celebrating the Eucharist on Sunday the most glorious thing we can ever do. It isn’t just the most important event in our lives, it is the thing that gives every other event in our lives meaning.
It is circular to say that I am thankful for the Eucharist (the word itself is Greek for Thanksgiving), but that is the truth.
Glory to God for all that He has done for us!
