A Thanksgiving Thought

Thanksgiving always arrives with thoughts of my mother, who shared words that stuck to me like glue. It was a little verse by Helen Steiner Rice, that has seen me through huge challenges in this life, physical blows, wounds of the Mind War, losses and deaths.

"The joy of enjoying and the fullness of living springs from a heart that is filled with Thanksgiving"

I don't know if Mrs Rice understood fully what she was saying, I know my mother did only partially. The central focus of the Christian Faith is not just "being thankful" which is most certainly necessary, exercising a thankful heart in all things, good and bad, which is most certainly necessary, but participation in the Thanksgiving of the Church, which Jesus himself designed and instituted, the Church's Thanksgiving is the Ευχαριστία - Thanksgiving in Greek, the Eucharist, the Divine Thanksgiving, in the West called "The Mass." The name "Mass" for the Divine Eucharistia, derives from the last line of the Liturgy in Latin, "Ite, missa est" (the dismissal is made) but the proper name is The Thanksgiving.

Indeed, "The Joy of Enjoying, and the Fullness of Living Springs From a Heart that is Filled with Thanksgiving."

I have a friend, who has everything necessary for life, good health, good retirement, beautiful home, people who love him, and he is miserable, angry, bitter and often depressed. His religion is theory, his heart is stone, his driving emotion is fear, he radiates misery and recoils in anger, refuses to try anything new and rejects that something might be missing in his "formula for success."

I have another friend, who struggles for the things necessary for life, who has health struggles (and has overcome much health struggle) who has no "safety blanket" who takes care of her husband reduced to the state of a child by an industrial accident, who cares for and accepts help from her daughter who was paralyzed in an auto accident, locked in a wheelchair, who cares for and accepts help from her elderly mother (middles 80s), who has to work to keep all clothed and fed, and her heart is flesh not stone, and she is filled with Thanksgiving, enjoys her life, finds meaning in it, often is grieved but is NEVER depressed. The other day she told me how much she was enjoying life, and how many times she and her husband laugh together over silly things, which has to be since he has the mental capacity of a 3 or 4 years old.

Such lives tell us lessons if we have eyes to see. They tell us by example, that "The Joy of Enjoying, and the Fullness of Living SPRINGS from a heart that is filled with Thanksgiving." And this is not just the emotions of gratefullness, but the actions of prayer and worshipping the ONE TRUE GOD, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I'm not talking about happiness-seeking sickness or the experience of euphoria, or any other fleeting emotion, but rather the underlying spirit, the soul locked in love with its creator, able to storm the gates of hell, with power and strength, instead of fear and defeat.

The numbers have to be now in the many thousands, and via my blogs, in the tens of thousands, who I have CHIDED and shamed for their fear and defeatism. Just a tiny spark of TRUE hope and faith has saved this nation from LITERAL rule by Luciferians. This is not hyperbole! This Thanksgiving we have more than usual for which to be thankful. Are you enjoying it? Enjoying those around you? Enjoying your friends, family, pets and this beautiful place God has given us in the Feast Day of Living? Or are you caught in your quiet or chaotic demonic hell, locked in fear, bitterness, anger, or the pure demonic drudgery of depression?

Ευχαριστία! Ευχαριστία! Ευχαριστία!