Thursday, November 24th is Thanksgiving Day. This is the closest we have to a “national holy day”. The holiday was celebrated on the last Thursday of November since President Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation of “a national day of Thanksgiving and praise.”
Each year it was up to the President to issue a proclamation to announce the date on which the holiday would fall, but it was dependably set for the last Thursday – that is, until 1939.
In two years out of seven November contains five Thursdays. In order to permanently anchor a place for the holiday FDR proclaimed that from now on the Thanksgiving Holiday will be observed on the 4th Thursday of November.
At Saint Matthew the Thanksgiving Liturgy will be celebrated at 9 am, Thursday, November 24th. Come, and bring your family and friends as together we give thanks for the gifts we have received this year.
I have come to realize that the virtue most appropriate for older persons, like myself, as we live the final stage of life, is the virtue of gratitude, the virtue of thanksgiving. It is important and is a time to remember the hundreds and thousands of ways God has touched and blessed my life; the many people who have been an occasion of grace for me. It is time to sit back with a gracious spirit and simply live gratitude.
May you and all who share your table this holiday be blessed and mercied by God; and may you show mercy to each other.
Father Steve Adrian
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