On this Thanksgiving Day, let us approach this new season with a sense of peace and the constant reminder that the Lord is in control. I post this well-known prayer in hopes you might appreciate reading it again.
From St. Francis of Assisi:
Prayer for Peace
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
When I was a girl, I thought every family was like mine: loving, caring, and genuinely fond of one another. I didn’t grow up hearing arguments over social issues and politics, and certainly not religion since we are all professing Christians. Well, maybe some good-natured ribbing about Baptists versus Methodists.
We rose above differences to put family first. I remember good food, good times, and laughter and will have more with family this year. My prayer is that you will be blessed with fun and warm memories this year as well. May you also be blessed by this Thanksgiving prayer from the 1928 edition of The Book of Common Prayer:
TO our prayers, O Lord, we join our unfeigned thanks for all thy mercies; for our being, our reason, and all other endowments and faculties of soul and body; for our health, friends, food, and raiment, and all the other comforts and conveniences of life. Above all, we adore thy mercy in sending thy only Son into the world, to redeem us from sin and eternal death, and in giving us the knowledge and sense of our duty towards thee. We bless thee for thy patience with us, notwithstanding our many and great provocations; for all the directions, assistances, and comforts of thy Holy Spirit; for thy continual care and watchful providence over us through the whole course of our lives; and particularly for the mercies and benefits of the past day; beseeching thee to continue these thy blessings to us, and to give us grace to show our thankfulness in a sincere obedience to his laws, through whose merits and intercession we received them all, thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
I leave you with this advice from St. Teresa of Avila. May your Thanksgiving and the rest of your year be blessed.
Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.
