The Year of Faith which begins on October 11th marks the 50th anniversary of the 2nd Vatican Council - a monumental event in the life of the Church. The days following the Council, like some occasions even today, caused the People of God to question events - in the world and in the Church.
This series How Can I Know is about addressing doubts and questions so that we can enter the Year of Faith focussed without stumbling blocks (Mark 9:, 30-37, 38-48). Two weeks ago we asked “How Can I know if I can start over if I Blew It?” Last week we asked “How do you know if there is a God ?”. We continue in our desire to seek, find, knock and have the door of faith opened.
As we mark Thanksgiving - and as our Gospel this weekend (Mark 10:2-16) speaks to us about the richness of life and faith found within the gift of the Sacrament of Marriage and the innocence of childhood, we invite ourselves to ask “How Can I know If I am Thankful?”
Now, Thanksgiving is often marked by family gathering and good food! The thanksgiving meal is a staple of the weekend and so off shopping I went. I have to tell you though that to get to the grocery store at times is a challenge. The entrance to parking lots at times seems to be the exit location of common sense. People drive hap hazardously and seem to enter a zone that makes them unaware of other human beings in their midst. The pursuit of the last mango, potato chip bag or yogurt container on the shelf seems to be as vital as the air we breath. The grocery list becomes marching orders from a commander with dire consequences if unfinished! Or so it seems.
Well this week had one of those occasions, for it seemed to me that I met a lot of very driven personalities that day whose manners were left at the gathering spot of the shopping carts. As I arrived at the cash register, exhausted from the experience of trying to find three things on my grocery list, I took a deep breath. As I waited, I became entertained by a conversation between a little boy and his mother who were ahead of me in the register line. Obvious visitors to the city they spoke of how this grocery store was more ample than the one in their hometown. They listed everything they had seen, and then the little boy said - DID YOU SEE ALL THE TURKEY’S? I thought to myself - you bet I saw all the turkey’s - even got almost trampled by some of them!
Turkey’s are around us in life - they are not just in grocery store freezers
• they are that person who tells lies about you and speaks ill of you.
• they are that family member or friend who needles you because they are jealous of you.
• they are that person who feels entitled and judges you and is hurtful toward you
• they are that stranger who just says the wrong thing or that person who knows the right thing to say just to get at you or that individual who is holding a grudge and has it in for you.
Sometimes those “turkey’s” even gather with us at Thanksgiving and not on the table, but around the table seated with us. We all have moments in our life when we stop and we say Did you See All the Turkey’s! So when Thanksgiving comes around we ask ourselves - How Can I Know If I am Thankful?
I am a big lists fellow. I start my day with a list of things I wish to accomplish and get pretty happy when the day moves along and I can click them off on my list. But the opposite happens too - I find myself a bit disappointed if my list has lots to do still left on it by the end of the day. If our approach to thankfulness is list orientated - well - we are sometimes going to see what’s lost and left. That is why there really is two types of thankfulness
There is Secondary Thanksgiving - or what I call - “The Grocery List” of Thanksgiving. It is when we live life by coming up with a list of what we have: my investment portfolio had done well, my job is fulfilling, my family is healthy, my school work is satisfying, my health is fabulous, my looks are movie star status, my clothes are the latest, my toys are the greatest. So we turn to God and say thanks for this, for the good things we have. But the opposite of course is true - if any of these things are not on the list - thankfulness is not!
But as people of faith we are called to Primary Thanksgiving. This is a deeply found gratitude for God Himself - or what I call “ A Habit of Thanksgiving”. It is a seeded sense that develops within us a call to be a people of gratitude. We are called to get our eyes off of the list, the lot or the little, but to consider His greatness, His Majesty, His Blessing. Its that sense which the author of our First Reading (Genesis 2.7, 15, 18-24) speaks of when reflecting upon the creation of God and its ultimate connection to us.
So, “How Can I know If I am Thankful?”, well I guess by asking yourself if you focus on a list of lot or little or if you focus on a daily attitude each day which see gratefully the very creation which God has given us - little or lot - and rejoices in its very presence, is very nature. Do you see all the Turkey’s or do you appreciate all the blessings? Will your thanksgiving be ruined if one person says the wrong thing or will your thanksgiving be blessed by the very habit of just getting together? Primary Thanksgiving is what people of faith celebrate. Here is what I mean.
If for example, I have a cheque in my hand $1,440 and I have another which I will give, and another that I will give, and choose to do so every single day for the rest of your life. - Padre’s Cash for Life! - would you take it ? There is only one thing - you have to spend it all - totally everyday. None of it can be left over - none of it can be saved for the next day. You have to use it fully, totally anyway you want - except - none can be saved for the next day. One day it will stop - but you don’t know when - but for now you get $1440 daily. Would you take it ?
Most of us would be thankful for that - we’d accept - here is the thing - we already have something of that value its minutes in a day - exactly the same number 1440 and God gave them to us with that same agreement. We have to use them everyday. How we use them demonstrates if we are thankful. Ask yourself how you use them? Is it in a spirit of loss (the turkey’s too them) or a spirit of thankfulness ( God gave them)?
How Can I know If I am Thankful?
• Do you focus too much on the turkey’s or the list?
• Do you use every minute to the best of your ability or let the Turkey’s take them from you?
So this Thanksgiving - focus not on the turkey’s but the banquet, the harvest the blessing. If you do - your whole life will be one where you will know you are thankful!