HAPPY THANKSGIVING

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 

When we think of THANKSGIVING DAY,  we think of turkey,  or lots of food, usually with family and friends, marathon football games,  and increasingly for many of us,  shopping,  but let's not forget what is at the center of our day;  for your prayerful reflection something we may not remember of the origins of this day:

 

On October 3,  1863,  in the middle of our nation's Civil War,  President Abraham Lincoln gave this national holiday as a day to GIVE THANKS for our abundance that is from God:

 

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven;  we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity;  we have grown ...  as no other nation has ever grown.   But we have forgotten God.  We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined ... that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.  Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace,  too proud to pray to the God that made us."

 

As we celebrate THANKSGIVING today,  however we celebrate it,  let us remember always to GIVE THANKS TO GOD  for all the graces and blessings and gifts we have so richly received from God's generous and loving care for each and all of us.

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING from the Ava Franciscans