Spiritual Reflections

This week as we celebrate Thanksgiving in the United States, let us take a step back and acknowledge the importance of love, gratitude and sincere thanks in our lives.

We criticize and judge so much, we rarely have time for genuine praise and appreciation.

We take everything for granted–people, things and even our lives. We seldom pause to voice sincere thanks for everyone and everything that makes our life happy and beautiful. We must take time to thank our God for walking with us throughout the year. For our life. For our families. For our faith. For our town. For our health. For green bean casserole. For football, for Macy’s parade.

A sincere thank you and gratitude blossoms love— love for yourself, love for those who matter the most to you, love for humanity and love for all beauty, prosperity, health, happiness, joy and abundance in the world.

Focusing on Thanksgiving Day as a religious remembrance can raise eyebrows of the go-with-the-flow set. Do we really have to choose between calling Thanksgiving a religious holiday or a civic celebration, a day like Easter or more like the Fourth of July?

I think the holiday has evolved into a subtle mix of secular and spiritual, one that each of us can adjust to our own values. For me it is a time to express gratitude for the good things in life as a spiritual act.

Our founding fathers also thought of the spiritual aspect of Thanksgiving,

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Issued by President George Washington, at the request of Congress, on October 3, 1789

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness: “Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country…” Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go. Washington

Psalm 69:30 I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. To live a life of gratitude is to catch a glimpse of heaven.

Many blessings to all of you on this Thanksgiving week.

Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Deacon Peter Mueller of St. John’s Catholic Church in Grand Marais.