THANKSGIVING DAY 2010 IN AMERICA.....WHAT ARE WE GRATEFUL FOR, "IN THANKSGIVING", THIS YEAR ?..........

With crispness in the air on this fourth Thursday of November day in America, we awake to what I call our National Day of Consecration, "ThanksGiving 2010".  For the 390th time since the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony joined with the Native Americans following their first Harvest in the New Land, sharing a feast of foods and taking time to give thanks to God for blessing them with freedom, family, faith, and friendship, we celebrate this ThanksGiving Day, with our families, friends, neighbors, parishioners, and perhaps even persons we have only a passing relationship with, as we express our Gratitude, Generosity, and Goodness.
President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 proclaimed the fourth Thursday in November to be a day of, National ThanksGiving".   Turkey, is the traditional focal food of the holiday as families gather in the words of the childhood song, "Over the river and through the woods", to grandmother's house and the homes of our families, for this four day weekend.  It is important that we take time to ponder the blessings of time, talent, and treasure, we possess, especially as our country and the world continues to recover from the steepest economic recession in more than eighty years.  And at a time when our military men and women continue to serve in the war-time volatility of Afghanistan and Iraq, in a decade when so many of them have missed sharing in their families ThanksGiving tables. As our families gather around their tables today to share the holiday feast, may the time we spend together be filled with the gratitude, generosity, and goodness, as we share memories old and make memories new, in thanksgiving for the blessings of life..........Happy ThanksGiving America,   Fr.  Troy