Happy Thanksgiving!

To all the members of the Fraternity in the US and Canada, and my blog readers there, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving.  In Ireland we have no such holiday or feast, and to be honest we could do with one.  Today we rarely take time to say thanks to the Lord for what we have received.  It is edifying that America, and secular America at that, still holds true to the spirit of this feast.

Last year myself and Fr Owen were over in Alabama just before Thanksgiving and we managed to attend EWTN's Thanksgiving dinner, celebrated a few days before the feast so all the staff could get to it. What a splash!  Everyone brought a dish, and what good cooks the staff of EWTN are!  It was all there - the turkey, the various vegetable dishes and yes, my favourite, pumpkin pie!  We don't get pumpkin pie in Ireland, but I had always wanted to try it.  When spending time in New York as a seminarian, the lovely ladies of Holy Child Parish got wind of my curiosity, and somehow managed to make one. Ah.....joy!  Like an angel crying on your tongue, as Fr Owen would say.  Since then I convinced our housekeeper in Drogheda, Anne, to have a go at making a pie, and wow, she made a good one!  She also makes a mean Sacher Torte - better than the original.  Now that I am in Rathkenny though, such delights are gone (for the moment anyway!). Penance, you see, penance!

Of course Thanksgiving is more than pumpkin pie, lest you think I have turned into Homer Simpson; it is about giving to God what is his due.  Now I do not know who American atheists thank on this day, but for us believers we recognise that all good things come to us as gift, as unmerited, generous gift from our Creator, and the greatest gift of all is our redemption - the sacrifice Christ made for us to restore us and offer us salvation.  We give God thanks for that, and the greatest expression of that thanks is cooperation with his grace.

I see there is an American custom where the President of the US reprieves a turkey at Thanksgiving: President Obama was pictured on Irish TV granting pardon to this year's lucky bird - very nice.  But it would be even nicer if he reprieved the millions of American children who will die in abortion clinics during his presidency, and he adopted a pro-life stance.  Today, Thanksgiving day, perhaps pray for him and for all anti-life legislators that they may be converted and the gift of life that has been given to them they will see fit to respect it in others.