The celebration of Thanksgiving Day is valuable to our American Culture. If we celebrate this day well, it allows us to live out our Christianity and values and push back against the encroaching secularism of our time. Thanksgiving, when we pause to consider its meaning, and when we decide to open our hearts and be thankful, is a natural pathway to God. As important as the history lesson of the “first Thanksgiving” might be – and as useful as it is to firmly ground our traditional celebration – it has to be about more than Pilgrims, Indians, planting corn and eating a big meal.
Wednesday of the Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s Gospel is Luke’s slightly different account of the Parable of the Talents we heard on Sunday from St. Matthew. The differences between these two parables isn’t particularly important, though they are interesting. In Luke’s story, the amount given to each servant is much smaller than a talent. This reinforces the important spiritual teaching that we aren’t to worry about how much we have received, but that we are to invest what we’ve been given as wisely as we can. God has given us a great gift in Jesus: the grace to live a life liberated from the snares of sin and bound for resurrection. We are expected to use the Gospel we’ve been given to increase the fruitfulness of the Gospel around us.
Saint Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church
CHRYSOSTOM:
When the soul is unclean, it thinks all things unclean. Therefore scrupulous observances are no mark of purity, but it is the part of purity to be bold in all things.… What then is unclean? Sin, malice, covetousness, wickedness.
AUGUSTINE:
As far as we are concerned, our consciences are all that matters. As far as you are concerned, our reputation among you ought not to be tarnished but influential for good. Mark what I’ve said, and make the distinction. There are two things, conscience and reputation; conscience for yourself, reputation for your neighbor. Those who, being clear in their consciences, neglect their reputations, are being cruel; especially if they find themselves in this position. The apostle writes about this to his disciple: “Showing yourself to all around you as an example of good works.”