November 22, 2012, Special Thanksgiving Edition

FEAST OF SAINT CECILIA

Thursday of the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Saint Andrew – Friday, November 30, 2012

YEAR OF FAITH - Oct. 11, 2012, through Nov. 24, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving

A Catholic Thanksgiving prayer

Loving God,

who created and sustains the universe,

who loved us all into being,

and who gives us every good thing,

we thank you for the blessings

that you bring into our lives.

We thank you for the gift of life itself,

which you gave us in our mothers’ wombs.

We thank you for the fresh start of each new day,

which is a sign of your renewing and creative love.

And we thank you for our friends, our families,

our neighbors and our coworkers,

whose human love is an image

of your divine care.

Increase our gratitude this Thanksgiving Day,

and help us to recognize all the good things

that we have, both large and small.

And magnify our desire to share

what we have with others,

so that they too may be

grateful to you,

Loving God.

Amen. -James Martin S.J. | Nov 24, 2011

Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude

Thnx4.org is a new resource from the GGSC: A guided two-week exercise to make gratitude a daily practice in your life. Launched this month, it is part of our three-year project called Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Thnx4 lets you keep a private journal of the people and things for which you're grateful, and it enables you to share your thanks publicly while reading expressions of gratitude from others around the world. What's more, your participation helps researchers study the causes, effects, and meaning of gratitude. Click here to get started, or learn more background about the project.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

Walter Rauschenbusch

O God, we thank you for this earth, our home;
For the wide sky and the blessed sun,
For the salt sea and the running water,
For the everlasting hills
And the never-resting winds,
For trees and the common grass underfoot.
We thank you for our senses
By which we hear the songs of birds,
And see the splendor of the summer fields,
And taste of the autumn fruits,
And rejoice in the feel of the snow,
And smell the breath of the spring.
Grant us a heart wide open to all this beauty;
And save our souls from being so blind
That we pass unseeing
When even the common thornbush
Is aflame with your glory,
O God our creator,
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

From Living God's Justice: Reflections And PrayersLiving God's Justice: Reflections And Prayers, compiled by The Roundtable Association of Diocesan Social Action Directors

Saying Grace: Mealtime Blessings Around the World

The following article by Jamie Stringfellowappeared in the 2012 November-December of Spirituality & Health. It can be accessed at It reminds us of how connected we are as human beings regardless of race or culture.

Whether we bow our heads over pasta or pad thai, giving thanks connects us not only with a higher power, but with each other.

Everyone does it: from the Burmese and Balinese to the Inuit and Icelanders. In the United States, almost half of us do it, making it one of the most common of our shared rituals.
We give thanks for our food with prayer, with rituals and dance, before meals, after eating, and in praise of a bountiful harvest. We thank someone, or something—mother, a god, the earth, the sun, the soil, the rain, or the people joining us at the table.
Theologist Laurel Schneider, the author of Polydoxy: Theology of Multiplicity and Relation, said that in the time before pasteurization and refrigeration, “blessings may have been part purification (we pray that this food will not mysteriously kill us)” along with simple gratitude and the practice of “pleasing God/the spirits/the ancestors.” Acknowledging, she says, that the food “is not ours to begin with, but loaned to us” by those entities keeps us humble and in proper harmony.

“I do like the universality of blessing food,” she says. “It reminds us that our bodies are part of spirituality, too.”

Beyond the spiritual, our bodies benefit from a pause to give thanks: “Taking a moment of gratitude before you start eating,” says chef and nutritionist Rebecca Katz, author of The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen, “gives you the opportunity to breathe and fully take in the sight and smell of your food.” That pause, she says, puts our body in a parasympathetic state, taking us out of our default “fight or flight” state and making food easier to digest. Now that's something to be thankful for.

Israel
BirkatHamazon is Hebrew for “blessing on nourishment” or, often, “grace after meals.” Though the Birkat has several stanzas, Jews all over the world say a simple, single line before eating, depending on the food they are blessing.

For fruit, for instance, it is Blessed are you, lord our god, king of the universe, who has given us fruit of the vine.

India
Hinduism considers food a gift from God, to be treated with respect, for what we eat determines our mental and physical well-being.

Before it is eaten, food is offered to God, in a ritual (called prasada) that is believed to purify the mind, body, and spirit.

One blessing goes: “May the Lord accept this, our offering, and bless our food that it may bring us strength in our body, vigor in our mind, and selfless devotion in our hearts for His service.”

Japan
The Japanese start a meal bowing the head, bringing the hands together, and saying itadakimasu, which means “I am receiving.”

Ghana
Thanks for a meal is simple:

Earth, when I am about to die

I lean on you

Earth, while I am alive,

I depend on you.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

“The Spirit Bowl is taught as a way of life; it is second nature when sitting down to partake of food or beverage that you feed the spirits," says Travis Suazo of the Laguna/Acoma and Taos Pueblo. "When the Spirit Bowl gets full, the contents are sprinkled upon the earth with an accompanying prayer and cornmeal or corn pollen.”
Latin America

A simple grace:

To those who have hunger,

Give bread

And to those who have bread,

Give the hunger for justice

Hartford, Connecticut

In the official birthplace of American Sign Language, gratitude for food is expressed using the sign for thank you: The signer moves a hand from the mouth forward to display a flat palm.

Burma, Laos, and Cambodia

Most Theravada Buddhist monks eat only once or twice a day and bless their food with this chant:

Wisely reflecting, I use this food not for fun, not for pleasure, not for fattening, not for beautification, but only for the maintenance and nourishment of this body, for keeping it healthy, for helping with the Spiritual Life. Thinking thus, I will allay hunger without overeating, so that I may continue to live blamelessly and at ease.
Pakistan
Though many Pakistani families say an entire Surah Fatiha (a complete chapter of the Koran), many precede each meal by simply saying, “Bismillah Al-rahman, Al-rahmin,” which means “I begin in the name of God most gracious and ever merciful.”
Iran
As in Pakistan, Muslims in most Islamic countries say the “Bismillahar-Rahman” before eating a meal, then pray together at the end by saying, “Thank you, O Allah, for feeding us and making us amongst the believers.”

Tibet
“Tibetans make offerings not just when we sit down to eat," says LobsangYeshi of Radio Free Asia. "In many traditional families, whoever makes the tea offers the first tea in a special cup or bowl at the altar before anyone is served. It is called ‘Ja-Phue,’ or ‘best tea’ or ‘first of the tea.’"

Scotland
The Selkirk Grace was a 17th-century mealtime prayer popularized when Scottish poet Robert Burns delivered it at a feast given by the earl of Selkirk:

Some hae meat and canna eat,

And some wad eat that want it.

But we hae meat, and we can eat,

ae let the Lord be thankit.

Colombia
TheBarasana people of the Vaupés region eat the same food every day, a meal that represents the collaboration of male and female productivity. Women plan, harvest, and cook manioc (a staple starch), and men bring home meat they have hunted. The two foods are joined by a spicy pepper relish, which scholars say symbolizes (and celebrates) the sexual intercourse that unites a married couple.

The Philippines

In the highlands of northern Luzon, Igorot men and women give thanks for a bountiful rice harvest by performing a dance called bumayah, which includes movements imitating a rooster scratching the ground.

Greece
Eastern Orthodox religions traditionally offer “first fruits” as a form of thanksgiving and blessing. The annual cycle of first fruits begins with the blessing of grapes, or other early-ripening fruits. As the harvest season progresses, the first fruits of each species are brought to the church to be blessed, using a prayer that often asks “that the Lord may receive our gift unto His eternal treasury and grant us an abundance of earthly goods. . . .”
Micronesia
In Pohnpei, a chief “taboos” a food that is about to come into season; no one may eat it until the chief announces a first-fruit ceremony, during which the community members pick the fruit and give it to the chief in a basket called a kiam. For the season of breadfruit, called kehmei, he blesses the breadfruit in the basket and distributes the food among the people who first donated it. Once the chief has blessed the crop, families can replicate the ceremony with the mother or father doing the blessing. “But the food is not just generic food when it goes back down the chain,” says Cornell University anthropology professor Jane Fajans. “Instead it instantiates the power of the chief . . . and the food the people eat is imbued with the values of community and cooperation.”
Kentucky
The Osage Indian people, who populated the Ohio River Valley and what is now Kentucky, celebrate the first corn of the season with a song, exuberantly sung by a mother as she runs to tell her children of the new crop.

North American Plains

Various American Indian tribes smudge the food (and themselves) with sage smoke and give thanks to the Great Spirit for “the resources that made the food possible, to the earth mother that produced it, and the people who labored to harvest it and put it on the table.” Then they ask that the wholesomeness of the food bring out the wholeness of the Spirit within each of them.

Missouri
Boy Scouts in Missouri practiced the “S-F” grace, named after the S-F Scout Ranch in Knob Lick. The prayer is often said when there are Boy Scouts of mixed religions at the table:
For the gifts of food and freedom

And the hills to roam

For the crimson sunsets

And the Earth our home

For the stars at night

And the gentle wind and trees

We thank you Great Spirit

For all of these

Hollywood, California

“O Dear Lord, three things I pray: to see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly . . .” —Ben Stiller, saying grace in Meet the Parents

Thanksgiving Table Prayer

O Gracious God, we give you thanks for your overflowing generosity to us. Thank you for the blessings of the food we eat and especially for this feast today. Thank you for our home and family and friends, especially for the presence of those gathered here. Thank you for our health, our work and our play. Please send help to those who are hungry, alone, sick and suffering war and violence. Open our hearts to your love. We ask your blessing through Christ your son. Amen.

FromCelebrating Faith: Year-Round Activities for Catholic Families, by Mary Cronk FarrellCelebrating Faith: Year-Round Activities for Catholic Families

I AM

I AM is an utterly engaging and entertaining non-fiction film that poses two practical and provocative questions: what’s wrong with our world, and what can we do to make it better?

The filmmaker behind the inquiry is Tom Shadyac, one of Hollywood’s leading comedy practitioners and the creative force behind such blockbusters as “Ace Ventura,” “Liar Liar,” “The Nutty Professor,” and “Bruce Almighty.” However, in I AM, Shadyac steps in front of the camera to recount what happened to him after a cycling accident left him incapacitated, possibly for good. Though he ultimately recovered, he emerged with a new sense of purpose, determined to share his own awakening to his prior life of excess and greed, and to investigate how he as an individual, and we as a race, could improve the way we live and walk in the world.

Armed with nothing but his innate curiosity and a small crew to film his adventures, Shadyac set out on a twenty-first century quest for enlightenment. Meeting with a variety of thinkers and doers—remarkable men and women from the worlds of science, philosophy, academia, and faith—including such luminaries as David Suzuki, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Lynne McTaggart, Ray Anderson, John Francis, Coleman Barks, and Marc Ian Barasch—Shadyac appears on-screen as character, commentator, guide, and even, at times, guinea pig. An irrepressible “Everyman” who asks tough questions, but offers no easy answers, he takes the audience to places it has never been before, and presents even familiar phenomena in completely new and different ways. The result is a fresh, energetic, and life-affirming film that challenges our preconceptions about human behavior while simultaneously celebrating the indomitable human spirit. For more information or to order the film, please go to

Thanksgiving Prayer

This Thanksgiving let those of us who have much and those who have little gather at the welcoming table of the Lord. At this blessed feast, may rich and poor alike remember that we are called to serve on another and to walk together in God's gracious world. With thankful hearts we praise our God who like a loving parent denies us no good thing.

From Songs of Our Hearts, Meditations of Our Souls: Prayers for Black Catholics, Songs of Our Hearts, Meditations of Our Souls: Prayers for Black Catholics

edited by Cecilia A. Moor, Ph.D., C. Vanessa White, D.Min., and Paul M. Marshall, S.M.

Welcome Back – Dad, Thank you for shaping my life

This is a powerful acclamation to dads but especially to those men who have chosen to join the Armed Forces and leave their families behind when they go to defend our country. For all those families whose parents will not be with them this year because they are in harm’s way, we pray they will return home safely to their families and loved ones. You can watch this four (4) minute video at

Blessings to You from Gina and Lee on this Thanksgiving Feast

May you experience each day
as a sacred gift
woven around
the heart of wonder.
— John O’Donohue (Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong)

Grace Before Meals
As we begin this meal with grace,
Let us become aware of the memory
Carried inside the food before us:
The quiver of the seed
Awakening in the earth,
Unfolding in a trust of roots
And slender stems of growth,
On its voyage toward harvest,
The kiss of rain and surge of sun;
The innocence of animal soul
That never spoke a word,
Nourished by the earth
To become today our food;
The work of all the strangers
Whose hands prepared it,
The privilege of wealth and health
That enables us to feast and celebrate.
Grace After Meals
We end this meal with grace
For the joy and nourishment of food,
The slowed time away from the world
To come into presence with each other
And sense the subtle lives behind our faces,
The different colors of our voices,
The edges of hungers we keep private,
The circle of love that unites us.
We pray the wise spirit who keeps us
To change the structures that make others hunger
And that after such grace we might now go forth
And impart dignity wherever we partake.

-- To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of BlessingsTo Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings(BENEDICTUS)