A Thanksgiving benediction

November 26, 2008 | My Jottings

Our Thanksgiving will be different this year. We will be celebrating in a different house. We will have the smallest number at our table (five) that we’ve ever had. We will have two new people at our Thanksgiving table, and will sorely miss six who are usually with us. We will have nothing to eat that’s green (unless we count the celery in the stuffing). It will be quiet. But we will heartily give thanks, for all that we have, for all we’ve been spared, and for the marvelous blessing of having Someone to thank.

I hope your Thanksgiving is blessed in every way – that at the end of the day you can thank God for the love of family, the comfort of friends, the abundance of provision, and the wonder of faith.

Today as I bake pies, ready the turkey, pick up the house and run a couple of last minute errands, the sentiments of this prayer will be constantly on my mind:

O merciful God, grant that we may
desire ardently,
search prudently,
recognize truly,
and share in your work
for the praise and glory of your name.

Put our lives in good order, Lord God,
so that we may know what you want us to do
to bring to completion the work you have begun among us.

Grant, O Lord, that we may not falter
in times of prosperity or adversity:
may we not be proud and greedy in the former,
nor dejected and discouraged in the latter.

May we not rejoice in anything unless it leads to you,
nor be saddened by anything unless it turns us from you.

Help us, Lord, to show our gratitude to you
by imitating your generosity, the Giver of all that is good.

Amen.

St. Thomas Aquinas