Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a holiday in America that is widely participated in. Whether it is for the food or for gathering around the table with relatives, every year Thanksgiving is highly anticipated.

However, this national holiday is also becoming a symbol of the past and how families used to get together. Nowadays, the majority of families are split up and the Thanksgiving table is getting smaller and smaller. Fears of offending other family members with choices of lifestyles are beginning to sow division in the celebration of Thanksgiving.  Instead of being a time of sharing what you are truly thankful for, families are rushing through the meal without talking to one another and watching the football game on the TV in kitchen.

What is to be done then in this culture that is so hostile to the family? Simply put, a greater realization that everything thing we have is a gift.

So often in our everyday lives we believe that what we receive is our due. Our job, our family, our money, tend to be viewed as ours and not God's.  Even our very life is viewed as something we posses.  In the end, though, nothing is ours. Everything is a gift.

Saint Francis of Assisi displayed this perfectly when he preached to hundreds of birds in a nearby tree,

"My little sisters the birds, ye owe much to God, your Creator, and ye ought to sing his praise at all times and in all places, because he has given you liberty to fly about into all places; and though ye neither spin nor sew, he has given you a twofold and a threefold clothing for yourselves and for your offspring. Two of all your species he sent into the Ark with Noe that you might not be lost to the world; besides which, he feeds you, though ye neither sow nor reap. He has given you fountains and rivers to quench your thirst, mountains and valleys in which to take refuge, and trees in which to build your nests; so that your Creator loves you much, having thus favoured you with such bounties. Beware, my little sisters, of the sin of ingratitude, and study always to give praise to God." From "The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi," 1476

This should be a great lesson for us. If the birds of the air have much to be thankful for, why should we not be thankful for all that God has given us?

Try as we may, we can never accomplish anything without God's help. This Thanksgiving, let us reinstate that blessed tradition of reciting to all our family members what we are thankful for. That way, we will recognize that it is not us who created the world, but God who is the author of life. Only then can our families be reunited and our culture begin to recognize the beauty of the family.