Happy Thanksgiving — in two tries

  • I felt like I should be able to find some­thing suit­able for Thanks­giv­ing in “My Life in Christ.” I thought I had it in one try, but then I real­ized that the first thought may be a lit­tle too pen­i­ten­tial for a hol­i­day that, if not purely Chris­t­ian, is at any rate rel­a­tively whole­some. So I tried again and found some things much more to the pur­pose. I offer them all, because some­one might be feel­ing monas­tic on Turkey Day (cer­tainly not my incli­na­tion, but then, “dif­fer­ent strokes” and all that), while some­one else might want to remem­ber just a lit­tle of what all Chris­tians every­where can truly be thank­ful for.

    The first thought was this:

    Do not rejoice when your coun­te­nance is bright from pleas­ant food and drink, because then the inward face of your soul is hideous and deadly, and at that time the words of the Sav­ior Christ are applic­a­ble to you: “For ye are like unto whited sep­ul­chers, which, indeed, appear beau­ti­ful out­ward, but are within full of dead men’s bones” — that is, of hypocrisy and iniquity.

    Now, like I say, to quite a few of us, that might seem like a bit of a kid­ney punch when you’ve got the pleas­ant prospect of a day with turkey and stuff­ing and pump­kin pie ahead. (“Hey honey, could you pass the sepulcher-whitener — sorry, I mean the gravy?”) So … mov­ing right along, there’s this reflection:

    God is good­ness. He is like inex­haustible chrism; the spir­i­tual world is the devel­op­ment of this good­ness, like an ocean of fra­grant chrism, and the mate­r­ial world also. How can we not hope to obtain all good things from such good­ness? The Lord in His good­ness has dif­fused Him­self into all crea­tures, like chrism, with­out hav­ing in any wise exhausted Himself.

    and also:

    It is impos­si­ble to bestow more upon you than God has bestowed upon you, for He has given you Him­self, or His flesh and blood, united with His God­head. He has made you His child.

    Or maybe it’s like the Protes­tant dox­ol­ogy hymn so many of us remember:

    Praise God, from Whom all bless­ings flow;
    Praise Him, all crea­tures here below;
    Praise Him above, ye heav­enly host;
    Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

    Happy Thanks­giv­ing to everyone.


    Related posts:

    1. In Jean for Thanks­giv­ing, Vegas the next day
    2. The scary Mary prayer
    3. The short, happy death of leopard-girl
    4. What makes kids happy — an afterthought
    5. Happy Cir­cum­ci­sion Day!

    November 21st, 2007 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 11.21.2007

    Have a won­der­ful Thanks­giv­ing. May it be olive free!

  • Grace

    Thank you! :-)

    It was olive-free. Are olives even a part of Thanks­giv­ing? Well, in any case, I’m cer­tainly glad I man­aged to dodge those five calo­ries. I might have just plain exploded.

  • s-p

    I eat what­ever my mother puts on the table. God gave me my mother and if He wanted me to avoid turkey, gravy, ham and fix­ens, he would have given me a nun instead. :)

  • Grace

    And when you think of it, not many of us have nuns for moms. Funny, that.

    As for Thanks­giv­ing, as Fr. Joseph said on his pod­cast, “Some hier­ar­chs allow for a fast­ing dis­pen­sa­tion in honor of the Amer­i­can hol­i­day.” And I gather that my met­ro­pol­i­tan — Mpn. PHILIP — is one of those hier­ar­chs. So I don’t bother with guilt on Thanks­giv­ing Day. I can more than make up for it on the other days.

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