Dear Friends,
Every year on the weekend before Thanksgiving Day I like to offer a reflection on the great feast of gratitude that happens every year at this time. Sometimes I offer my own reflection, other times I look to the wisdom of others. This year, I found some quotes which speak well to the power of gratitude, so I share them with you. I don’t know all the people attributed to the quotes but I appreciate what they say! May you have a most blessed and enjoyable Thanksgiving Day and please consider joining us for Mass on Thanksgiving Day at 9:00 am in our church. You’ll be glad you did!
Thanksgiving Day Quotes
“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added… No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.”
– President Abraham Lincoln: Proclamation of Thanksgiving
“Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action.” – W.J. Cameron
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” – John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.” – Harry Ironside
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” – G.K. Chesterton
“The Christian who walks with the Lord and keeps constant communion with Him will see many reason for rejoicing and thanksgiving all day long.” – Warren W. Wiersbe
“Each day is a gift from God. What you do with it is your gift to Him.” – T.D. Jakes
“Shout joyfully to the LORD, all you lands; serve the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful song. Know that the LORD is God, he made us, we belong to him, we are his people, the flock he shepherds. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name; good indeed is the LORD, His mercy endures forever, his faithfulness lasts through every generation.”
– Psalm 100
“No one has ever become poor by giving.” – Anne Frank
“What if, today, we were grateful for everything?” – Charlie Brown
Enjoy the week, give thanks to God and may God bless you all.
Love,
Fr. Tim