by Father Michael McGarry, CSP
November 25, 2013

As I searched for a few quotations to wiggle their way into this short meditation on Thanksgiving, I noted that the numerous reflections I found break down basically into two groups: 

The first, larger, group consisted mainly of a believer’s personal reflections, litanies, if you will, of all the wonderful things our God has done for her/him: good health, a job promotion, a soldier’s return from war, an acceptance into the college of her choice, the taste of a raspberry, a grandmother’s hug and so on. And why should we not be grateful for such things? What blessings we have from our God! They are captured, all at once, in E.E. Cummings’ poem, which many of us from the Baby Boom generation memorized:

I thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

The second group of quotations captures its meaning in Catholic Worker Peter Maurin’s maxim, “We must make the kind of society where it is easier for people to be grateful.” Christian gratitude is not only for the good things that I have received, that I have been blessed with, but also – even more so? – what makes our national and global community a community of gratitude. Eucharist – from the Greek meaning “thanksgiving” – is when and where we communally say “thank you.”

And it’s not either gratitude for me or gratitude for us, it’s both/and. The problem, though, is that in our hyper-individualistic culture, the second thankfulness is too easily and quickly forgotten … or never even attended to.

Our Paulist founder Isaac Hecker was driven by his love for our country to share Christ’s message with his fellow citizens. His gratitude drove his mission. As should ours.

We are blest. We are grateful to our God, and we pray that our God develop in us a grateful heart. 

So, from the bottom of our Paulist heart, we say “Thank you” to our God, “thank you” to you, because you both support our mission and, we hope, recognize your own mission in ours.

Father Michael McGarry is president of the Paulist Fathers.