Celebrating Thanksgiving

 Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

This Thanksgiving, may you celebrate the wondrous blessings of a home, a meal, and those priceless gifts we call family and friends. If you’re struggling, if ‘celebrate’ is the last thing you feel like doing, may the people around you wrap you in their love and appreciation. May all of you give thanks for the irreplaceable gift of YOU!

May you hold in the depths of your soul a Spirit of Gratitude for God’s immense love and grace. May this spirit of gratitude be a sentiment that is deeper, richer, and more joyful than a mental ‘attitude of gratitude.’ May you be graced with peace as you recall reasons to celebrate and blessings to be thankful for: friendship and kinship, food from God’s loving creation, and time to savor all of it.

May this special Day of Giving Thanks remind you of God’s goodness and fill you with joy!

 “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” –Psalm 150:6

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever.” –Psalm 136:1

 

 If you like reading my reflections, please share them with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. Also, feel free to leave a comment. Thanks!

 

Love Is... Preparing for Thanksgiving

One of the biggest reasons we love Thanksgiving – and there are many – is that it’s rooted in gratitude. We share a meal with people we love, to thank God for the blessings of each other and our country. We may start the day with Mass or other church service (‘Eucharist’ comes from the Greek word for ‘thanksgiving’). We may participate in a Run to support a nearby soup kitchen: Go to https://runsignup.com/Race/OH/Akron/HomeRunfortheHomeless for one fun 4-mile race, now in its 30^th year! No matter how our day begins, when we take the love and laughter heard around the dinner table and add football, a hike or board games, we’ve got a recipe for one special holiday!

All the loving and thanks-giving aren’t reserved for next Thursday, though; you’re celebrating them now, as you cross things off your ‘to-do’ list.

Think of all your expressions of love and gratitude that are disguised as preparations: You love people when you invite them to join you for dinner. You love when you deep-clean the house, shop for groceries, and squeeze in more chairs around the table. You love when you pray for the safety of travelers. You love when you happily accept an invitation and prepare a dish to share. If you’re having overnight guests, you love when you figure out where everyone will sleep and put clean sheets and blankets on the beds. You love when you mop the floor, vacuum the carpet, and scrub the bathroom. You love when you give what you have to those who would otherwise go without. It’s all love, and it all brings a little bit of heaven to earth.

 “This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God” (2 Corinthians 9:12).

So in the coming week, while you’re crossing tasks off your list, thank God for all of it: your family and friends, a home to clean, food to prepare, and plenty to share. Remember that you’re already celebrating thanks-giving, well before the holiday arrives.

“Lord, as I prepare for Thanksgiving Day, may everything I do be rooted in love and gratitude to You.”

 

If you like reading my reflections, please share them with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. Also, feel free to leave a comment. Thanks!

 

Faith Is Power

  “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” –Luke 17:6

Imagine:  trees uprooting themselves and moving to another location. That’s impossible! Yet Jesus’ point is that, when we put our faith in Him and His loving power, what we think is impossible can become possible. What do you wish was possible? Maybe it’s to break out of a cycle of sin or forgive that particular someone – including yourself? Maybe it’s overcoming an addiction, finding gainful employment, or being healed? Whatever it is, ask God for His grace and power to help you make it happen.

Faith gives us courage to believe the promises of Christ. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). Believe that God loves you and wants you to spend eternity with Him! Believe that Christ made that possible through His own death and resurrection, which proved that Love is more powerful than the evil that tried to destroy Him.

Faith helps us trust God, knowing that His ways are not our ways. We may ask God for greater faith and then seek out His wisdom. As Augustine of Hippo said, “I believe so that I may better understand. I understand so that I may believe.”

Faith doesn’t solve all our problems for us, and having faith doesn’t mean we’ll never worry. Think of Mary and Joseph traveling for a day toward home from Jerusalem and then discovering that 12-year-old Jesus wasn’t with the large group (see Luke 2:41-50). Of course they were worried! They were also proactive: they asked their fellow travelers if anyone had seen Him and then went back to Jerusalem to look for Him. They certainly asked God to protect Him and guide them to Him. After a few days they found Jesus in the temple, conversing with the rabbis. He was surprised they had worried: ‘Didn’t you know I was right here the whole time?’

Imagine Christ saying to you, “Follow their example. When you’re worried or struggling, come to Me. Trust that I’m always here, right beside you. Have faith in Me and My love for you. I want you to know true joy; I want to ease your burdens. Ask Me to show you the next step. Let Me pour My wisdom, strength and courage into your soul. Let Me fill you with My peace.”

“Lord, I believe in You. Increase my faith. Help me trust in Your loving power so that, with You, I can do the impossible.”

If you like reading my reflections, please share them with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. Also, feel free to leave a comment. Thanks!

 

Gifting Each Other With Prayer

 

“I’ll pray for you.” What a wonderful gift we give to someone when we ask God, the Creator of the universe, to help them in whatever way is needed for that particular situation. This is what we call ‘intercessory prayer.’ We give ourselves the same gift when we pray for ourselves.

I believe God designed prayer to be both spiritual and intellectual; I believe that prayer is most powerful when we pray for something specific, and visualize what we are asking God to accomplish as if it has already happened. Even while praying recited or repetitive prayers, like the rosary, we might picture the scene or the person we’re praying for. Here are a few examples you might want to try that have been taught to me over the years:

Someone’s physical health is poor? While you ask God to heal them, picture that person’s body being healed. Picture them in their home or hospital bed or wherever they are. Picture an army of white blood cell “soldiers” battling their illness. Picture Jesus laying His healing hands on the person as their body heals. Picture Him calming their fears, taking away their pain, and helping their body relax. 

If someone is in need of emotional, mental, or spiritual healing, ask Jesus to shower His blessings on them. Picture Him placing His hands on their head, pouring His peace into their mind and their heart. Picture Jesus standing with His arm around the person’s shoulder, offering words of comfort and encouragement. Ask the Lord to let the person feel His love and presence.

Are there relationship problems? Ask Jesus to act as a loving mediator. Picture Him standing in the room with the people who are estranged from each other, His open hands inviting them to reconcile. Picture the tension between them fade as healing and forgiving powers wash over them, wrapping them in His peace. Picture the people smiling at, shaking hands with, and even hugging each other.

Many of our struggles are caused not only by the circumstances but by the stress we feel because of those circumstances. That’s why, in my opinion, we add power to our prayers when we pray for another’s peace of mind and heart as well as their physical health.

Jesus promised to be with us; let’s be generous in gifting each other with our prayers.

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matthew 28:20

“Lord, help me to pray my prayers with sincerity so that Your will may be done and the world will come to know you and the power of Your love.”

If you like reading my reflection, please share it with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. Also, feel free to leave a comment. Thanks!