Today is a day to recognize our many blessings and to give thanks to God. In today’s second reading Paul leads us in a pray of thanksgiving: “I give thanks to my God always on your account for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus… God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” We give thanks today first for the gift of God’s grace and love. God is always faithful and always renewing his invitation to each of us to come to him, we are invited each day to “fellowship… with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Like the lepers in today’s Gospel the first step to thankfulness is recognizing our need for God, recognizing that we cannot do it on our own. So, we cry out and pray: “Jesus, Lord! Have mercy on us!”. In Jesus’ day lepers were ostracized, cut off from society and human fellowship. When they came near to people they had to cry out, “Unclean, Unclean!” Jesus cured them and sent them to the priest to attest their healing so that they could enter into human fellowship. Like these lepers, we can also experience this isolation in our daily life and even isolation from God. Jesus heals us and invites us to enter into fellowship with God. Paul tells us that through the God’s gift of grace we have “fellowship with Jesus Christ our Lord.”
We are called to respond with thanksgiving, like the Samaritan leper who returned to Jesus “glorifying God in a loud voice.” Today we give thanks for the gift of our faith, the blessings God has bestowed on us as a country, as a parish, and as a family. We give thanks to God for the blessings God has bestowed on our country by letting the light of God shine forth. You and I as citizens are called and challenged to be people of truth and integrity not going along with the “party line” but standing up for the truth. We cannot do this on our own, but God is with us as we hear in the Greeting at the beginning of mass taken from today’s second reading: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Let us give thanks and give glory and praise to God.
Image: “Thanksgiving Cornucopia” by Lawrence OP is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.