Te Deum laudamus: te Dominum confitemur; We praise Thee, O God; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.
In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum; In Thee have I hoped, O Lord; let me not be confounded for ever.

Dear Parishioners and Friends,

All of us identify and fell good about the uniquely American celebration of Thanksgiving Day. Yet this year those over a certain age recall probably the saddest Thanksgiving Day in our American history. It was right after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, fifty years ago. After hearing the shocking news, slowly our country pulled together and moved on. I suppose that in some ways we have never been the same. There was a loss of innocence, trust, security. Yet we reached deep down into our souls and heard our Lord speak to us: “Blessed are those who mourn, they shall be consoled.”

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One tends to feel rather patriotic as Thanksgiving Day approaches. It is, I think, the most American of holidays, in that religion, family, and material abundance are interwoven into the building of community and good cheer associated with the kickoff of the commercial Christmas season. We do these things well as Americans.

And then we always have G.K. Chesterton to recall for us the proper order of things. “The Americans have established a Thanksgiving Day to celebrate the fact that the Pilgrim Fathers reached America,” Chesterton quipped. “The English might very well establish another Thanksgiving Day; to celebrate the happy fact that the Pilgrim Fathers left England.”

Of course, we need not share Chesterton’s disdain for our dear Thanksgiving Day, even if we share his disdain for Puritanism. For Thanksgiving is actually and properly about the rendering of gratitude to Almighty God for all of His blessings upon us. “In all circumstances give thanks,” St. Paul wrote. This is precisely what we recall this Thursday: that, no matter what is happening in our lives, the proper posture of the creature before the Creator is the movement of the heart in gratitude.

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As we come to the end of our liturgical year, the Church places before us the feasts of St. Albert the Great (November 15) and the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (November 21).

At first glance, these feasts have little in common. First, we have Albert, nicknamed “The Boot” because he was said to have walked all of Europe, the great scientist and scholar and bishop, who is the true patron saint of extroverts, as he carried out his peripatetic mode of holiness in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the world. Albert is famous, first and foremost, because he was the teacher of the great St. Thomas Aquinas, forming young Thomas in the philosophy of Aristotle, which was newly available in Latin-speaking Europe. Called the “Universal Doctor” because he studied everything, the Bishop of Regensburg is also the brightest-shining exemplar of the “Scientific Revolution of 1215.” In his intellectual labors and tireless travel and widespread influence, he is a brilliant example of the fruitfulness of the active life in the Church.

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