Giving Thanks Should be the Main Course

Thanksgiving may be my favorite holiday, because it's just about the only one that has escaped the full weight of crass commercialism.

In the past decade or so, Christmas, Easter, and Hallow Eve have been under siege by a marauding band of avaricious activities whose sole intent is to fuel fake passion, pocket a profit, and whisk the beleaguered "consumer" onto the next purchase. The sign on the bus of unchecked materialism always says, "Further," for the destination is "More" and the point of departure is "Never Enough." The pity is that so many, literally, buy their way aboard the fakery.

Thanksgiving, on the other hand, remains largely centered on two things: family and gratitude. Yeah, there's football (lots of football) and we hope fun (lots of fun), but the core of this day is, for our personal lives, to be with loved ones, and for our private lives, to take stock of our blessings and give thanks to God. I like thanking God, because it eliminates all the "middle men" who have had a role in that with which I've been blessed. This would include parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, mentors, colleagues, and - if truth be told - even a few nemeses.

Counting the Blessings
One great thanks for me personally is the gift of my wife and my family. Another is the gift of health.

Last year at this time, I was spiraling downward in a medical attack that had begun in August (barely noticed), hit bottom in mid-December (impossible to ignore), and didn't diminish until well into the New Year of 2007 (perceived by all). As I express my gratefulness to wellbeing, I can also look back on that harrowing time and also recognize my indebtedness to Brother Malady and Sister Affliction. They taught me oh so much, and while I rejoice that they have left me, I thank them for having stopped by to visit.

I also give thanks for a place like Eden Hill, an employer like the Congregation of Marians, and a haven like the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy.

The Hill sits literally in my backyard (strangely enough, we bought the house long before we knew I'd be writing about Divine Mercy). I often come up here for a solitary, evening stroll amid the rolling hills, the swatches of forest, the unfurling of fields, and the ambience of ethereal presence.

I don't have to imagine a single thing. Ask anyone who has been on the Hill for any length of time - especially alone or if with company, in communicable silence - and they'll tell you the same thing. IT is here, the only place I know where that third-person-singular pronoun is at the same time the personal pronoun HE. I trust you know what and whom I mean.

Band of Brothers
The Congregation of Marians is a bunch of guys, priests and brothers, whose job it is to keep the world from going completely off its rocker. I'm convinced that it is the prayerful efforts of groups like this that keep this great, granite planet from falling apart. The men of this congregation understand, or are trying to understand, the observation expressed by Reinhold Niebuhr, the American theologian:

Forgiving love is a possibility only for those who know they are not good, who feel themselves in need of divine mercy, who live in a dimension deeper and higher than that of moral idealism, feel themselves as well as their fellow men convicted of sin by a holy God, and know that the difference between the good man and the bad man are insignificant in [H]is sight.



The Marians I have known "get" this "serious joke." I use joke advisedly. I'm not talking about a funny story or a wisecrack but a laughable irony of the human condition: Only by knowing we're "not good" (perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect) can we fully realize the immense goodness that is ours for the taking: love and mercy divine.

We laugh so as not to cry, and in our laughing note that the tears of misery have become the tears of joy. God is so amusing in this way (amusing: in the act of being inspiring, as in, acting as a muse).

The Place Where Miracles Happen
As for the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, I think about the history of this place. Construction began in the mid-50s and took about half a dozen years. Today, the Shrine and surroundings comprise "center city" for Divine Mercy in North America, a place where I find myself most every day.

The Shrine itself is an architectural gem, a harmonious collage of burnished wood carved by artisans; stained glass, with colors shimmering like the translucent jewels of a back-lit kaleidoscope; a chessboard floor of streaked marble the color of egg whites veined with licorice; the gold trim, highlighting the carved flourishes like the foil on a chocolate coin; the "alive" statuary, which are to devotionals what mannequins are to the human body; the paintings, where two extremes - the Absolute Being of God and the all-too-human hands of artists - came together in a clasp of friendship and love; and the image of The Divine Mercy, the portrait of The Man Who Died so that we could live.

The Shrine houses love. It encapsulates the great revelations of God's mercy as proclaimed by Jesus to St. Faustina. This is the place where miracles happen everyday, if we can agree to define miracles simply as events that happen that produce faith. How can we not give Thanksgiving for this?

In that spirit, I want to share the story of an "ordinary miracle" that recently took place at the Shrine.

The Mouse Who Roared
It's a dispatch from our old friend, The Church Mouse:

Mr. Bojangles came to church today. I'm sure it must have been him - not the tap dancer but the guy in the Jerry Jeff Walker song. You know, silver hair, ragged shirt, baggy pants, reeking of yesterday's vodka. Only this fellow didn't "jump so high," he just was high. He danced all right, a drunkard's dance. Side to side, one step forward, two steps back. I couldn't figure out which way to scurry because this guy kept changing direction as he tried to walk down the center aisle of the Shrine.

I stayed as close as I dared.

He didn't say much, but kept an unsteady bead on The Divine Mercy image over the tabernacle. "Jesus," he muttered. "Jesus," he slurred even louder. It was hard to tell if he was cursing or praying as he neared the front of the church. Finally, Mr. Bojangles plopped down in the third pew, right, with an unsteady thud.

He sat there, not moving. I couldn't tell if he was praying, nodding off in a fermented haze, or "sleeping it off." At long last, he looked on the bench, where a Shrine Sunday Bulletin just happened to be resting.

Beside all the news, the bulletin has an important bonus inside, on page 2. It is a notice of an open Alcoholics Anonymous meeting every Sunday night at 8 p.m. in Memorial Hall at the National Shrine. Believer and atheist, saint and sinner, optimist and skeptic - all are welcome. A friend of the Shrine, Joe, drives up all the way from Chicopee, Mass., just to hold the meetings here. He makes a huge pot of coffee and everyone likes him.

People relax around Joe, and many, for the first time in a long while, make meaningful contact with another human being and begin confronting the demon that is alcoholism. Joe could not utter one prayer in the next month of Sundays, and it wouldn't matter. His prayer is his action.

"I was sick, and you took care of me." That's Joe.

He's a man walking the walk of mercy.

During the AA meetings at the National Shrine, people talk about their problems and solutions, their families and friends, their hopes and dreams, their accomplishments and their failures. Sometimes they read from scraps of paper and other times from something they call the "Big Book." Joe always tells them about The Divine Mercy and the steps to follow to make life better.

Alcoholism not only clouds the mind but ravages the body, suffocates the soul, and kills the inner spirit. It hurts those who know and love the alcoholic. It squanders the past, wastes the present, and steals the future. It cares not whether the victim is young or old, black or white, Catholic or Hindu, Mensa member or mentally challenged. It is mean, nasty, and vicious. It stabs and twists the blade on the way in. It is relentless in its pursuit and irresistible in its allure. It destroys relationships and creates betrayal.

With my help, Mr. Bojangles saw the announcement of the AA meeting. He didn't say a word, but I thought I saw in his eyes the flinty resolve to finally stare down the beast.

The following Sunday night, I discretely slipped into the back of Memorial Hall, where the AA gathering was in progress. In the last row, I saw Mr. Bojangles. He appeared still to be in his bog and fog, but this time with a difference. He eyes were moist. He sat with a dawning. A flood of tears was only a recognition away.

Mr. Bojangles had taken his first step.

So if someone you know or someone you love for whom one drink is too many and too many are not enough, tell them about the Sunday night AA meeting at the National Shrine.



A Life as a Song of Thanksgiving
Literally at the beginning of her life as a religious sister, and again at the end of her life here on earth, St. Faustina's heart overflowed with a sense of thanks:

At last came the time when the door of the convent was opened for me - it was the first of August [1925], in the evening, the vigil [of the feast] of Our Lady of the Angels. I felt immensely happy; it seemed to me that I had stepped into the life of Paradise. A single prayer was bursting forth from my heart, one of thanksgiving (Diary 17).



And as she lay dying of the tuberculosis that ate away her lungs, she wrote this:

O Jesus, eternal God, thank you for Your countless graces and blessings. Let every beat of my heart be a new hymn of thanksgiving to You, O God. Let every drop of blood circulate for You, Lord. My soul is one hymn in adoration of Your mercy. I love You, God, for Yourself alone (1794)

.

To all my dear readers, give thanks to God. He is good.

MMIN

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