The Gift of Gratitude

Dear Friends,

As COVID-19 keeps pursuing our bodies this Thanksgiving, let’s try to keep our eyes and hearts fixed on the big world we live in with all its graces, newness and hopefulness, as well as on our families and friends. Let’s remember that:

·         All the good done, the justice insured, all the compassion offered, all the violence rejected across the world is God’s gift to us.

·         When vaccines are proven effective and the poor are included in healing, these are God’s gift to each of us.

·         When people’s bonds are broken and they are freed to use their talents for a better life, these are God’s gift to us.

·         The surprising things that we find true, beautiful and good in our homes, relationships, neighborhoods, are God’s gift to us.

·         When illness, accidents, bad choices, unethical situations, international disasters of human or natural making have not overwhelmed us personally or collectively, these have been God’s gift to us.

·         When the situations of our lives have been graced with meaning-makers and consensus-builders, these have been God’s gift to us.

If gratitude catches hold of our hearts and minds and feet it becomes a way of living in us. When we receive with thanks and give away freely, gratitude has become a way of living in us.

When Jesus in the Gospel says to the man he cured of demons to go home and make it clear to them how much God had done for him, this was God’s gift to him and gives us an example to do in like manner.

We thank God, too, for poems that urge us to be grateful and which speak to us of what we know in more pedantic ways. These are also God’s gift to us.

                “…For vows of marriage, vows of silence, 

                    vows of chastity that bend the starlight to earth…

                    For holy names and graves…

                    For the grace of growing old 

                    And thinking that it’s wisdom.

                    For that share of intimacies

                    I don’t share with words

                    But share with sadness and content.” (William O’Leary, 2017)

On Thanksgiving Day, may we roam among the snippets of thought, the sacred spaces of this earth and be deeply aware that God has given us hearts that are capable of enlarging with gratitude.

~Sister Joan Sobala