Thanksgiving 2015
Thanksgiving is this week, and we’re sure that everyone is looking forward to spending the long holiday weekend relaxing with family and taking a break from the stresses of school and work. This will be our second Thanksgiving together, and while some students from our campus have to travel hours back home and separate from their significant other for the weekend, we are very fortunate in that our hometowns are only thirty minutes apart. We have many things to be thankful for, especially the faith that we share and the love and support that we get from our Newman Center community. We look forward to spending time with each of our families and enjoying multiple Thanksgiving dinners together. Instead of looking forward, however, why don’t we take a few steps back to look at how the month started: All Saints Day.
In the Catholic Church, the entire month of November is dedicated to the saints, and rightly so. These were ordinary people who lived extraordinary lives dedicated to God’s holy will. They set the foundation of what it means to say “yes” to God’s call. The Thanksgiving holiday is not a religious one, but our faith is supposed to be in all that we do. So how do we, as Catholics, incorporate the season of the saints into our Thanksgiving?
To answer this, it is important to understand the role that giving thanks has in our relationship with our Father. Too often, we only turn to Him in times of need: when we state our petitions. Just like our relationships with friends, family members or anyone we love, a fruitful and fulfilling relationship with God requires us not only to ask and receive, but to give. In particular, to give thanks and praise.
One of the many things can thank God for is the saints who have walked on this earth. They are human beings, just like us, who are now our intercessors to God. When we pray to saints, we pray to people—not guardian angels, not the Holy Spirit, not our Heavenly Father—but people who have felt what it means to be weak, helpless and sinful at some point in their lives. Jesus became man, in part to become a sacrifice, and also to live among us. Although he felt human weakness and pain just like us, he was sinless and perfect. The saints were all exceptional people, but born into sin. The gift of empathy that the saints give us resides in their human imperfection.
Isn’t that something to be thankful for? These people have been given to us by God as uniquely human intercessors. This month, we should thank Him for giving us the saints, as well as supplementing our intercessions to the saints with prayers of thanksgiving. We should take this call as an opportunity to learn more about these holy men and women and the many ways that we can thank them in our daily lives. We should especially strive to grow closer to our confirmation saint, the one who we called on to guide us through our personal journey into the faith community and who continues to root for us every day.
As we reflect upon the things in life that we’re thankful for, let us not forget about the saints, the people who have lived on earth in weakness and also sanctifying greatness.
Stacey Forte and Paul Billig, students at Kent State University, OH