Today I went with many friends to pick apples, and we then went back to one family's home to feast on roast turkey and pumpkin pie.
Other people went hungry.
Today we went to Mass, my host and his wife and I. We heard a good homily about how necessary the Eucharist is to being fully alive. We received the Eucharist.
Some people have never heard the gospel at all. Some Christians have never heard about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Some Catholics are risking persecution and death every time they attend Mass.
Today I spoke with my mother, hundreds of miles away, and told her I loved her. The words didn't come out perfectly smoothly, because it's been too long since I last said them, but say them I did.
Some people are cut off from their families by external circumstance or a by legacies of conflict and resentment.
Today my friends and I took contrary positions on the Canadian election tomorrow and the one coming up in the States, before we settled down to more harmonious.
Other people cannot mention politics without wondering who will report them to the secret police.
Today I rested, and tomorrow I will return to my various contracts.
I also spoke with a friend who lost her job a few days ago.
Today I am alive. I have my sight and hearing. A church sign along the country road read, "Can't think of anything to be thankful for? Check your pulse."
An acquaintance died suddenly on Saturday.
It is so easy to complain, and I fall into this so often myself. The Internet has given us limitless access to discouraging and alarming stories upon which we can focus if we so choose.
It is easy too to turn thanksgiving into backhanded complaint, automatically sliding, for example, from gratitude for the freedoms we do enjoy to griping-for-griping's-sake about how our freedoms are under attack. Which they indeed are, but that's not the point. (I'll bet a few readers' minds went straight from "Other people cannot mention politics without wondering who will report them to the secret police" to "Yeah, and how much longer before that happens to us?")
One really can't fix a culture of complaint by complaining about it. One can only give thanks for the trials God has, in his great providential wisdom, allowed us to face with the help of his all-sufficient grace.
St Paul writes in his first letter to the Thessalonians, "Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (5:16-18). To the Philippians he writes, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance" (4:4-5)
The other day I visited my friend Grace, who is Baptist, in the nursing home where she's lived for several years. A few months ago she broke her knee, but she smiled so cheerfully as she recounted the saga of her injury and her recovery, incomplete as it is so far, because she trusts so deeply in God's providence. I told the kids in my Confirmation class on Sunday that many Christians are handicapped by not having access to the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist, and yet what inspiring lives ones such as Grace lead!
What do we do with the gifts God has given us? I know I've outright squandered more than a few ... and piddled away some others in spells of lukewarmness. Well, thanks be to God that I can receive absolution for my sins of omission.
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