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Thanksgiving Day celebrations usually involve many kinds of food, including dishes that represent local and family traditions. Giving thanks to those who prepare and set forth the food, as well as to those who provide the location and who offer the invitations, is common courtesy. Giving thanks to God for what we receive at a Thanksgiving meal is even more well deserved but only occurs to those of us who believe that God is the source of all goodness.
Just as there is no law commanding us to thank family members or friends who arrange for a Thanksgiving Day meal, we are not obliged to give thanks to God for that specific celebration or for anything else. However, when we let opportunities pass by and do not give thanks to people or to God, we lose a precious moment for making an outlay from the unlimited supply of goodness of which we are capable. It is like leaving a delightful meal with family and friends only to engage in some personal activity on our own. There is no joy or more personally fulfilling experience than giving thanks.
For a positive reflection, we can review our recent past and notice that at no cost to us we received peaceful contentment in those small incidents when we gave thanks to people for the good things they had done for us. In an even deeper way, whenever we chose to thank God for something recent or ongoing, our appreciation grew for whatever it was for which we gave thanks. Expressing gratitude confirms and affirms the goodness we have received, much like savoring a favorite food instead of merely eating it as something of no interest that happened to be within reach.
We do not create our affinity for giving thanks, nor the positive consequences for doing so. Rather, we are created by God who is all-good, and we resonate like the strings of a well-tuned musical instrument when we acknowledge goodness in other elements of God’s creation, especially fellow humans, but also in food, all necessities of life, and everything that is beautiful, true, and good. We have within our ordinary capacities the possibility of exercising honesty and generosity whenever we give thanks, for it is from us a personal gift of integrity and of love. We are not required to give thanks, but when we do so truthfully and with appropriate care for those whom we thank, we become more like the images of God we are created to be.
Thank God that we can give thanks, for doing so makes us fully human, moving us closer to our ultimate purpose in life: union with God who is love.
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Certain football rules allow for a specific player on the team to be in motion just prior to the ball being put into play. We have many other uses for the expression “in motion” especially when we wish to convey the opposite of “at rest,” or “immobile.” Many of us think of ourselves and most others as being in motion during most of our waking hours. Some of us have discovered that we even moved after we fell asleep because we found ourselves in a different position once we awoke.
The Pre-Christmas praying season, “Advent,” which begins this year on Sunday December 30, is vastly different from the pre-Christmas advertising and shopping season which began whenever commercial enterprises started their “Christmas” sales or whenever people started putting up lights and decorations in their homes or businesses. For those who enjoy the season of Advent, many customs and practices are put in motion right from the first day of the season. Scripture readings in worship services and in prayer books change on this day to correspond to Advent, and so too do the themes of music and preaching as well as visual arts and communal activities.
The season of Advent is arranged precisely to move our minds and hearts to reflect and wonder at all the prophecies and faith-inciting events that led up to and accompanied the birth of Jesus, and to discover for ourselves how humanly God loves us in becoming one of us. Whatever we set in motion is, of course, according to our initiatives or willingness to act accordingly. However, God is present and active in and through all that we do, and the sole initiator of much more, including the consolations and inspirations which occur in us when we focus on the deep mystery of God becoming one of us in the person of Jesus.
Many Churches and homes include Advent wreaths, with their four candles corresponding to the four Sundays of Advent. The color of the season is some shade of purple, which psychologically is the color of longing and expectation. Although Christmas music is often heard wherever we go, and perhaps in our homes as well, Churches feature Advent music that encourages reflection on both the long years of prophetic sayings about a coming promised Messiah and the shorter time of an expectant mother, Mary, and the human and divine interactions that lead up to the birth of Jesus that is celebrated at the Christ Mass on December 25.
Welcome to Advent, the season for believers when so much that is meaningful and beautiful is set in motion towards Christmas Day.