Commentary
Thursday, 11/23/2017, Thanksgiving Day
A Prayer of Thanksgiving
First Reading Commentary: Sirach 50:22-24
Sirach offers a two-part prayer of thanksgiving that we should make a habit of offering ourselves. In the first part of his prayer, Sirach gives thanks to God for life. He acknowledges that life is given to us, for the purpose, of fulfilling God’s Will and it is God’s Will that we be with Him in heaven. So, in essence; Sirach is thanking God for wanting us to be with Him.
But we cannot be with God in heaven unless we decide to go. That is the only responsibility that we have in keeping our part of the covenant that we have with God. Making the decision of being with God in heaven means that we follow God’s Word, His Commandments and the Light of His Son.
In the second part of his prayer, Sirach prays for everyone else. He prays for joy and peace. Sirach prays, “May his goodness toward us endure in Israel to deliver us in our days.” Sirach’s prayer is directed toward the Israelites but it demonstrates obedience to the Second Greatest Commandment which is to love your neighbor as yourself.
Praying for each other is an act of love. It is an act of giving that benefits; the giver as much as it does the receiver. Consider this: God is love and no one can or will demonstrate more love than He has demonstrated for us by sending the Son for our salvation. When we love our neighbor, we are actually saying, “Thank you” to God and we become closer to Him because we are acting like Him. Becoming closer to God is the benefit of thanking Him for all that we have. Becoming closer to God is also the benefit of thanking God for each other. Becoming closer to God means getting closer to heaven.
More Thanks Than We Can Measure
Second Reading Commentary: 1 Corinthians 1:3-9
St. Paul gives thanks to God for the Corinthians and the grace bestowed on them in Christ. He says that the testimony to Christ was confirmed among the Corinthians and that they do not lack in any spiritual gift. This gives us two things to consider. 1- All grace comes from God by way of the Son through His mother, Mary, who is the Mediatrix of all Grace. 2- There are four kinds of grace.
There is actual grace which heals our sin and allows us to observe the natural law. Efficacious grace allows the good works of God’s grace to occur in our lives because we accept it. In other words, God’s grace can only work for us because we accept it. Habitual grace gives one the tools needed to live life as a true disciple of Christ because habitual grace comes with all of the virtues, gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. Finally, sanctifying grace comes to us when we are baptized. It brings us to a new life without the stain of original sin as we are converted to the Lord.
It is easy to miss the full magnitude of this prayer of thanksgiving by Paul without understanding everything that is available to us with God’s grace. When we look at the four kinds of grace and everything that comes with grace, it is clear to see that Paul thanks God for a great many things, more than we can measure.
Paul is hopeful that the Corinthians; have accepted all of God’s grace and that it will remain with them. He tells the Corinthians that as they wait for the revelation of Christ, He will keep them firm to the end. Paul also tells them that God is faithful and that they were called to fellowship with the Son.
Paul is saying that we are called to follow the Light of Christ all the way to heaven. But let’s take a closer look at Paul telling us that God is faithful. We do not always think about God being faithful to us. We think about our need to be faithful to Him. We realize that we express our faith when we give praise and glory to God. We know that we are being faithful to God when we live our lives according, to His word. Catholics understand that faith itself comes from God as a virtue of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, we think about our faith in God in many ways.
That makes sense because faith is a foundation and I see it as a vehicle through which everything else from God comes to us. That is because we cannot receive anything from God if we do not first believe in God.
But God does have faith in us and God is faithful to us. He has demonstrated that countless times. Yes, there are those who will fall victim to the evil one and turn away from God but that is their choice. God created us in His image which means that goodness is instilled in all of us and God has never failed to protect us and take care of us providing us with our every need. God went so far as to send the Son to the cross for our salvation.
As Paul thanked God for more than can be measured, we too have more reasons than can be measured to give thanks. Giving thanks to God is something that we should do every day but today we set aside to say, “thank You” to God in a special way.
Thanks to God from the Heart
Gospel Commentary: Luke 17:11-19
Upon entering a village on His way to Jerusalem, Jesus was met by ten lepers, who from a distance said, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priests, which was consistent with the law about the cleansing of lepers in Leviticus 14:4-12. But Jesus also wanted the priests who wanted to persecute Him to see that the lepers had been cleansed by His power.
As the lepers were on their way to the priests, they were cleansed and one of them returned glorifying God in a loud voice. He fell to the feet of Jesus and thanked Him. Jesus said, “Ten were cleansed…Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God? Stand up and go; your faith has save you.”
There is a very strong message of faith bringing about salvation in this gospel. But on this day of Thanksgiving, we need to take a close look at this leper who was a Samaritan. We know that the Samaritans did not get along with the Jews. However, this Samaritan did not simply extend the courtesy of returning to say “Thank you.” He gave glory to God and fell at the feet of Jesus to say, “Thank you.”
Sometimes, we take God for granted because we know that He will always be there for us. Maybe that is why sometimes, God takes His time in answering our prayers. We should remember that God has feelings too and we have feelings because God gave them to us. Jesus uses the gratitude of this leper to teach us that He and the Father want to know that we appreciate them and everything that they have done for us.
Sometimes, we say, Thank you” to someone for a good deed out of common courtesy. But there is no heart felt emotion of gratitude and appreciation within that thank you. We can get away with such trivia with other people but we should never loose sight of the fact that God always knows what is in our hearts. We cannot fool Him. When we say, “Thank You” to God, it should come from the bottom of our hearts. Whether it is for something small or something major, our gratitude and appreciation to God should always be heartfelt.
Happy Thanksgiving and thank you God! Amen.
