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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.
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Even those with very limited financial resources go shopping for some needs that they can afford. Others, who have sufficient funds to do so, might shop for Christmas gifts. None of us can go shopping for grace, blessings, or inspirations. Nor do we expect to go somewhere to purchase love, faith, or hope. Rather, we can exercise these latter powers which God gives us when we make choices about whatever we might buy, and however we will make use of the material things we might acquire.
Since very few of us can afford to simply buy anything we want whenever we like, we usually have priorities in mind for purchases whenever we are shopping. These priorities affect every aspect of not only what we might procure, but also our motives. Unless we are willing to let our decisions be governed primarily by the attractiveness of items, we will rely on our spiritual resources to guide us whenever we go shopping. This does not mean that we go to a church to pray before going to stores, but we certainly are better at making decisions when we strive to consciously let our values affect the selections we make even as to which stores we will enter as well as to whatever we obtain.
Since we do not buy love but instead develop this precious gift of grace by making loving choices, any shopping we do related to the Christmas Season can be much more than a tiring burdensome task or mere fulfilment of societal expectations. When we have a clear purpose in mind that comes from love of God and love of people, selfish interests diminish, along with the energy-sapping thoughts and feelings that accompany purely self-directed impulses.
In the shops and stores we enter, more is available than we need or had in mind when we entered. Some of us adhere strictly to lists of what we intend to acquire, but openness to inspiration about whatever we ultimately buy is not at all the same as letting appetite or attractiveness in presentation or in packaging direct us. The Spirit of the one whose birth the season properly celebrates, is for us not just a source of friendly advice but also gives us gentle indications of whatever is better for us and for others, based on complete knowledge of both givers and recipients.
The best preparation for shopping, even before making any kind of list or plan of action, is to consciously pause to acknowledge the Spirit of Love within us, thereby opening our minds and hearts to receive the gifts of wisdom and insight that God wants to give to us. Then, we will be fully ready to go shopping.
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We hear a lot of singing in performances, audio recordings, video clips, and on radios and all manner of streaming devices, plus in shopping malls and other public spaces. Most of the songs we hear are done by professional entertainers or choral groups. But how much do we sing on our own or in gatherings of families and friends? Other than in church services, many of us hardly sing at all. “Caroling” at Christmas is now a rarity in most neighborhoods. Except for devotees of Karaoke, it seems that singing has gone the way of dial telephones as an ordinary part of our lives.
Rather than bemoaning the loss or deciding to join a movement akin to “Keeping Christ in Christmas,” we might reflect on those instances when we do have occasion to sing, and on how we also use our voices in modes other than talking to express and affirm our beliefs and values. We might do this more often than we think, and not just for our own sakes, but also for the good of others. Even if we have never considered ourselves as good singers, most of us are able to project our voices in more ways than in speech and with far greater capacity to convey the movements present within our hearts.
Just as we can hear but not listen, we can speak without saying anything. When we sing, call out to someone, or raise our voices to address a large group, we are usually much more intentional than when we just say whatever we are thinking. Even with an exclamation like “Oh, that’s awful,” we unconsciously use strong inflection that is more akin to singing than to a flat statement of fact. We commonly raise our voices not only when we want to warn someone of danger but also when we feel strongly about something, and so we use volume and projection to emphasize our meaning. When we notice how effectively we communicate when using these and others of our vocal capabilities, we develop our own repertoire of songs.
Many religious communities, cultural and social groups, and even military units, include singing as some part of their communal activities. For those who freely participate, no matter what the quality of their singing might be, bonds are formed that are beneficial to all. We might not be able to identify specific outcomes, but if we notice a bit of joy or a sense of unity with others who share similar values, we have personal experience of the gift of singing together.
Not all singing needs to be of songs. Sometimes, even in private, hearing our own intentional vocalizing of a feeling can be very helpful. Just as laughing out loud expresses a form of happiness, so can singing a single vowel like “O” or a phrase like “Ha” for the length of one breath, open our hearts in surprising ways.
You might want to try it sometime.
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Christ is the gift who keeps on giving. What does Christ get out of being the living gift of God among us? To begin reflecting on a mystery that might not usually enter our thoughts, we can start by asking ourselves a question about something more familiar: What do we receive when we give gifts? The non-tangible return from giving gifts that occurs within us, beyond any response from recipients, is the interior satisfaction of having enacted the deepest purpose of our lives. We are created by Love for love, so that when we give of our goodness to others, our hearts and minds are content and at peace.
In asking the question about what Christ receives from giving self, we can think immediately about our expressions of gratitude. Further, if we accept as real Christ’s self-identification with us, then whatever we do for anyone else we do for Christ. This includes whatever material things we give, and more importantly, the gift of our presence to and with others. All are at the same time gifts we offer to Christ, which we could think of as “birthday gifts” to the one for whom this holiday season was founded.
Christ is himself the ultimate Christmas gift given to us and is the primary motivation for us to give gifts that convey our sincere regard for others. The equation is very simple: when we accept the love of God for us so humanly identifiable in Jesus, this love cannot be stored, but rather it expands and grows when we express it through our thoughts, prayers, and deeds. Just as parents receive joy when their children speak and act graciously to others, we give this kind of gift to Christ in treating people well. And just as Christ came into the world for the sake of all people, regardless of ethnicity, religion, age, or even rightness or its absence, we have opportunities every day to return the favors we have received by the unique manner of care we exercise for others without restrictions based on any of their qualities.
However, we are not Christ and loving all whom Christ loves is beyond even our best-willed desires. Yet the seemingly impossible challenge need not be of great concern, for when we look directly to Christ, who looks at us with all-encompassing love, we leave aside our focus on the ideal, and more spontaneously respond to the more immediate practical situations in which we find ourselves. We lose awareness of whether we are returning love to Christ, and wind up doing so from the presence of Christ within us.
The ongoing Christmas gift of Christ is that God becomes one with us as an “insider,” drawing us into love for all.
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“Commercial Christmas” ends on December 25 with the removal of all related to it. And many of those who have been hearing Christmas music in public spaces and on digital media since before Thanksgiving, have grown tired of it and are glad that it has ceased. Some, even those who had looked forward to the prayerful celebration of the Christ-Mass have already focused on the coming events associated with New Year’s Day. However, since we are not coerced into moving on from “Real Christmas,” we are free to reflect on the ongoing mystery of God being infinite and yet born a frail human, of being eternal, and yet having entered our limited environment of chronological time. We might even join with the tradition of the continuing Christmas Season which begins on December 25 and ends with the Baptism of the Lord. The “12 Days of Christmas” is more than just a song.
However, the ongoing mystery which underlies all aspects of our sincere love is not primarily a graced reality that is tied to a specific date in our calendars or to an image of the newborn Jesus lying in a manger, but to the life-altering gift of faith itself, which enables us to trust in God’s love manifested in becoming one with us. We might not think about it very often, but we live with a foundational sense of God as good and as always present, having been made visible at the birth of God in Jesus the Christ as a member of the human family. For our own well-being as well as for everyone else, we can consciously attend to the mystery of God-with-us and perhaps read what other believers say about it; we can pray privately and communally about our belief, sometimes engaging with Gospel stories, and we can also share faith-experiences with others whom we trust.
Children do not understand love as a concept, but they know when they are treasured for who they are rather than their behavior. We ourselves can best appreciate the ongoing mystery of love by noting how we feel while we think and pray about God’s initiatives in creating us, holding us lovingly in being, and taking on human life with us, including all the positive and negative aspects each of us experiences. All this, plus the gift of faith itself by which we trust and love God in return by loving all of God’s beloved fellow humans. Finally, we accept with gratitude that we are called with Jesus through death into the life that does not end.
There is no expiration date for pausing to wonder joyfully and gratefully at the ongoing mystery of God with us as one of us.
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Many of us were taught as children not to be “show-offs,” trying to draw attention to ourselves by words or external behavior. The ideal was to speak and act consistently according to whatever we understood as right and good rather than just to be noticed by others. Perhaps, from having learned this when we were young, we internalized it into a more expansive interpretation that now prevents us from giving witness to truth and to reality when opportunities arise to do so.
Making a new year’s resolution to speak up for whatever we know to be right and good will not likely stay with us, because changing long-held attitudes and perspectives require much more conscious ongoing attention than can a single decision usually accomplish. However, a thoughtful plan of action that includes personally adapted prompts can be very effective, especially if our planning is founded on both imagination and prayer. When we only think about changing habitual behavior, we are not nearly as likely to do so as when we take enough time to imagine the benefits, entertain a desire for this new behavior, and receive inspiration as to how this might be a graced opportunity for us.
We might be familiar with twinges of fear on occasions when we could share something we believe to be right even though the environment is not one where we would expect opposition. The normal price of considering an action that is contrary to an internal rule such as “don’t put yourself forward” is just such an uncomfortable feeling. If we engaged in prayerful reflection enough to have felt strongly our desire to promote the practical consequences of God’s perspectives as we understand them, we will at least be able to pass a little beyond our comfort zone.
God does not brag about being creator, or any other aspect of being infinite and eternal love. However, God, in Jesus Christ, shows us God’s love in human form. And Jesus does this not only as an example of love, but primarily as a “practitioner,” caring for individuals in their specific needs by teaching that informs minds and hearts and by actions that enhance lives. The Gospels are full of stories that manifest this love of God for those whom Jesus encountered before his death and resurrection. We are now the ones with the contemporary stories of how we have been affected through our relationship with the risen Christ.
Without being “show-offs,” we have a responsibility to show God’s love by the ways that we love. Our ability to do that, first through how we normally act, but also through witnessing through appropriate words and publicly recognizable activities, flows directly from our acceptance of God’s love for us. The most direct and consistent way to be empowered to love like Christ is to spend some time on a regular basis in prayerful situations where we can “look at God looking at us with great love.” Then, we will love like God.
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If we become ill, we seek to get better. Since healing presupposes sickness, we do not usually think about healing except under conditions of poor health. And while it is true that we can be proactive in terms of our health by doing things like exercising regularly or eating and drinking healthily, healing is for those who are sick. Healing, then, would seem to have a negative association with sickness and therefore not be an attractive subject for our consideration. However, reflecting on healing can reveal welcome blessings and insights that enhance our appreciation for the gift of life in whatever condition might be ours at this time.
Just as we recognize goodness by contrast with whatever is bad and are usually more appreciative of sunshine after a rainstorm than by two successive sunny days, we are often more aware, for example, of being able to walk after we have been healed from a sprain or other injury. We often become consciously grateful, at least for a short time, for some capability that is restored through healing than we had been before we suffered illness or injury.
Most of us would find it more than difficult to be grateful for a sickness or wound itself, but we often become thankful when healing or betterment of our condition takes place. Sometimes, usually in retrospect, we have been able to see how a temporary health setback had unforeseen benefits for us. One common experience is that of an illness that required us to refrain from our normally busy routines and became the occasion for getting some rest that we had not recognized as a necessity or turned out to be the circumstance that led to a relationship with someone or a very meaningful insight.
When we think of healing, we naturally think of being restored to our former state of health. However, some very significant healing can take place as soon as we open ourselves to God. Just as children begin healing the moment a loving parent or other caring person attends to them, our situation always becomes more bearable when someone who cares for us reaches out to us, visits us, or accompanies us with true compassion. For those of us who turn to God, who is already present in us and with us, this Presence affirms us as being as valuable and loved no less in our sickness than when we were in the best of health.
Sickness and healing are not necessarily opposites, but can be complementary, even helping us move closer to fulfillment of our purpose in life.