It is no coincidence that our scripture readings for today tell of people who were grateful for the gifts with which God blessed and changed their lives. Tomorrow we celebrate our Thanksgiving Day when we gather as families to give thanks.
It might be a good idea if before we began our Thanksgiving meal we might take turns mentioning gifts for which we are thankful. You may feel uncomfortable about doing that, but give it a try. We can say ‘thanks’ for the gift of ourselves, the gift of the members of our family, the gift of our grandparents, certainly for the food we eat and those who prepared it. Then we have the gift of our health, our ability to see and speak and hear. We are blessed with the gift of our mobility. Not to mention the gift of our employment and the gift of our talents. We are blessed with the gift of living in this great land of Canada. Let’s face it, so often we take these gifts for granted and like the nine lepers we never think of saying ‘thanks’.
As I’ve mentioned at different times it would be great if would develop and maintain an attitude of gratitude.
We thank God for the gift of faith that brings us here this morning. Our celebration of our Mass this morning is known as our Eucharist and Eucharist is Greek word for thanksgiving. Here we give God our father/mother thanks for God’s gift to us in the passion, death and resurrection of God’s son Jesus. Here we give thanks to Jesus who gave his life for each of us by his painful and shameful death by crucifixion. St. Paul reminds us that one might give his life for a good person but that what proves that God loves us is that we were still sinners Christ died for us.
We give thanks for the gift of the bread of life we receive at this Eucharist. We give thanks for this parish family of St. Gabriel’s.
One of the saints is supposed to have said.’ If the only prayer we said was ‘thank you’ that would be enough.
God grant us all a safe and grateful and happy thanksgiving.
This Homily entry was posted on Sunday, October 13th, 2019.
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