Monday, November 23, 2009

Giving Thanks, Part 1

Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Sorrowful Mysteries
Memorial of Saint Andrew Dung-Lac and his companions, martyrs
Daniel 2:31-45
Daniel 3:57, 58, 59, 60, 61
Luke 21:5-11

Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.(Daniel 3:57)

Not everyone in the US will be sitting down to a homespun Thanksgiving feast this week, but we all have reasons to be thankful. In these exhausting economic times, if you're finding yourself stretched for one, try to look at the most astonishing of our blessings, which we share with each other purely because we enjoy the same awe-inspiring Creator:

"May you be praised, O Lord, in all your creatures, especially brother sun, by whom you give us light for the day; he is beautiful, radiating great splendor, and offering us a symbol of you, the Most High. . . . May you be praised, my Lord, for sister water, who is very useful and humble, precious and chaste. . . . May you be praised, my Lord, for sister earth, our mother, who bears and feeds us, and produces the variety of fruits and dappled flowers and grasses. . . . Praise and bless my Lord, give thanks and serve Him in all humility." – St. Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Creatures, Catechism, Para. 344

Each of us is directed to give our Lord praise and thanksgiving, today and every day that His Love commits us here.

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"I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself from it.

I am giving you three ways of exercising mercy toward your neighbor:
the first — by deed, the second — by word, the third — by prayer. In these three degrees is contained the fullness of mercy, and it is an unquestionable proof of love for Me. By this means a soul glorifies and pays reverence to My mercy.

Many souls ... are often worried because they do not have the material means with which to carry out an act of mercy. Yet spiritual mercy, which requires neither permissions nor storehouses, is much more meritorious and is within the grasp of every soul.

If a soul does not exercise mercy somehow or other, it will not obtain My mercy on the day of judgment. Oh, if only souls knew how to gather eternal treasure for themselves, they would not be judged, for they would forestall My judgment with their mercy".