Thanksgiving is a day of rest and reflection.  I’m not sure it is a day of rest because of all the details of hospitality.  However, it should be a day of reflection.  Frankly, it obviously is a day of reflection for us.  Look where we are.  We are beginning our day in church, giving thanks to God.  We understand what Thanksgiving is all about.  It’s good that we are here.

As I was looking to prepare my remarks for this Thanksgiving, I realized that I have given the same sermon on Thanksgiving day since 1996.  I went back in my homily notes to 1996, and with the exception of one year, I gave essentially this same sermon.  This is the seventh time you’ve heard it but fortunately, we forget what has been said in the past.

Although we are thankful and although we have so much to be thankful for, I think, most of us would agree with the statement that these are very cynical times.  Do you agree with that?  These are cynical times, everywhere you look, not only in the United States, but in other places as well.  This year’s problem is recuperation from the elections and the economy.  We are worried.  We know that the ones who are hurt the most from economic downturns are the poor and we are worried for them as well.  Frankly, this past election was as cynical as any election that I’ve experienced.  Would you agree with that?  Nasty, nasty stuff.

Again, I went back to 1996, and you know, every year we had a different complaint.  We had something to be sitting here about, and to be cynical about.  Except one year, and that was 2001, after 9/11.  That Thanksgiving was one of the most blessed Thanksgivings in our nation’s history.  For a few months, we were really holy people but we reverted back to our old form.

I want to talk about this today, because it is a day of reflection, and maybe we can change today.  Maybe we can confront this cynicism that many of us experience, and make a decision to move away from it, and therefore, to move closer to the heart of Jesus Christ.

First of all, you know that I love to define our words because we know what they mean, but not always.  A person who is a cynic is “a fault finding captious critic, especially one who believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self interest, distrustful of human nature and motives”.  A cynic doesn’t trust anybody, because everyone’s out for their own good.  Can’t trust anybody.  A cynic is a captious critic.  Now, I didn’t know what captious meant, so I looked it up.  Captious is defined as, “marked by a disposition to find and point out trivial faults, marked by an often ill-natured inclination to stress faults and raise objections”.  That sounds like a political campaign.  It’s true.  In political campaigns, you notice, they don’t talk about their merits so much as they talk about the other fellow’s faults.  Any time they start to get behind in the polls, they’re advised to get dirty; throw some dirt at the other guy.  However, that’s not only politics.  These guys are Americans, and so we share some of these tendencies.

I had a day of reflection not long ago, when I didn’t talk to anyone all day.  Yes, I mean it, I didn’t speak to anyone.  I tried, in my morning prayer, I said, “This day, just today, I’m going to go for 24 hours without thinking a critical thought about anyone.  Or, if I should think something critical about someone, I’ll express it in my mind, in a respectful and gentle manner.”  I failed miserably.  I didn’t make it to 8 o’clock.  What I was doing was I was a little test.  I was noticing that what I am thinking in my mind (“look at that, look at that”) eventually will come out of my mouth.  They’re not that far apart, the mind and the mouth.  Actually, it’s not the mind.  It’s the heart that’s doing this thinking, isn’t it?  We cannot think these things. There’s this morning news show that drives me crazy (grrrr) and I was thinking bad things about the reporters and this was shortly after writing this homily, I failed.  Perhaps some of you share this tendency with me.

I think part of the problem is we have lost our manners.  We, as a people, have lost our manners.  Especially concerning politicians.  What I mean is, we are rude to our politicians.  You’ve heard so much trash about our president.  So much of it has been hurtful and hateful.  George Bush is a man.  He’s a human being.  He’s made in God’s image.  He’s our President.  He deserves our respect. 

In the early church, many of the fathers wrote that “you must respect your political leaders.”  They were talking about Caligula and Nero. 

The other day, I was coming home and I was listening to “talk radio”, and it was a conservative station. They were ripping apart Obama, our President-elect.  They were dragging all the garbage from the campaign,  and rehashing it, and rehashing it, and blaming the press because they didn’t get deep enough into his problems.  I said to myself, “This is our President-elect.  He is going to govern this country.”  Now, I don’t agree with some of his policies, and I didn’t vote for him but I will pray for him.  I’ll support him to the best of my ability.  Maybe that way, people like me can change his mind about some things that we consider important such as the dignity of human life, from the moment of conception.  We’re not going to change the other side’s opinion by being nasty and cynical, cursing them and throwing them to the dogs.  That’s not going to help.  As a matter of fact, it’s going to hurt.

When I was waiting to get on the plane in Atlanta for Prague last week, a guy threw a tantrum in front of these two Delta Airlines people at the gate.  Something was wrong with his ticket.  He had these two carry-on bags, and he kicked the bags and they went flying.  He was cursing up a storm and expletives were flying.  I was convinced that any chance he had of getting on that plane had suddenly disappeared.  He could have got a lot further with a bit of kindness and gentleness, even though he may have had a complaint.

A captious critic.  Captious critic – marked by a disposition to find and point out trivial faults, marked by an often ill-natured inclination to stress faults and raise objections.  Now, we do that to politicians, we do that to people who try to help us get on airplanes, and we do it to each other, especially in the family.  We have to treat each other with respect.  We need to be gentle.  This cynical, disrespectful attitude or manner is un‑Christian because we don’t see the person behind the position.  Maybe today is a good day to change that.  We all want to change, don’t we?  But how?

That’s where Thanksgiving comes in.  Each year, I quote A.W. Tozer, who was a Protestant minister and writer.  He said this simple sentence that is packed with meaning. “A thankful heart cannot be cynical.”  A thankful heart cannot be cynical.  You can’t be grateful and cynical at the same time.  Maybe we are cynical because of our failure to be grateful, and we have so much to be grateful for.  Being grateful, to be thankful, is a virtue and a virtue needs to be taught, learned, and practiced.  We need to reflect on our blessings every day. 

However, this is a special day to be thankful.  George Washington tried to begin this as a holiday.  Lincoln actually succeeded. It was celebrated on this day, the last Thursday in November, since the time of Franklin Deleno Roosevelt, FDR. 

George Washington said this,

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer . . .

We needed it then, and we need it now.  Today we give thanks.  We lucky few come here to give thanks in the most perfect way. We do it by celebrating the Eucharist.  The word Eucharist means “to give thanks.”  What we do here, is we bring up our gifts, our joys, our sorrows, our concerns, our sufferings.  Everything.  We put ourselves on that plate, along with our gifts.  We offer ourselves up with Christ to the Father, in a perfect act of thanksgiving.

Listen to the mass today, in a careful way.  Listen to the words of thanksgiving, because that is what the Eucharist is.  We do that not only on Thanksgiving Day, we do that every day.  50-60 people are here at 6:30 in the morning on Monday and Tuesday.  In the dark of winter, I often wonder, when people who are going to work at the Labs see all the cars in the church parking lot, if they say to themselves, “What are those Catholics doing in there at this time in the morning?”  We are giving thanks to Almighty God in the most perfect way.

The act of being grateful is itself a great blessing.  I’m going to give you two quotes. I am unfamiliar with the authors though.  One is Melody Beattie, who wrote this and I think it’s beautiful. 

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance; chaos to order; confusion to clarity.  It can turn a meal into a feast; a house into a home; a stranger into a friend.  Gratitude makes sense of our past; brings peace for today; and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

This quote is by Ralph Blum.  “There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude.  A quiet joy.”

Today, we will use the Preface for this special day, before the Eucharistic Prayer. 

Father, we do well to join all creation in heaven and on earth in praising You, our mighty God, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord.  You made us in Your own image, and set us over all creation.  Once You chose a people and gave them a destiny, and when You brought them out of bondage to freedom, they carried with them the promise that all people would be blessed and all people could be free.  It happened to our ancestors, who came to this land as if out of the desert into a place of promise and hope.  It happens to us still, in our time, as You lead all people through Your church into the blessed vision of peace.  And so, with hearts full of love this day, we join the angels today and always, to sing Your glory in the hymn of endless praise. 

We pray, through Christ our Lord.  Amen.