Thanksgiving arrives each year with a kind of gentle insistence: slow down, look around, and remember what is good. In a world that trains us to notice what’s missing, this season re-teaches us how to see what’s been given to us. And that shift isn’t sentimental, it’s spiritual. Gratitude is one of the most powerful ways God heals our vision.
St. Paul writes, “Give thanks in all circumstances”
(1 Thessalonians 5.18). Notice he says in all circumstances, meaning that no matter what we’re going through, there is still something true and steady to thank God for: his presence, his mercy, his faithfulness, the people who love us, the grace that carries us when we feel empty.
Thanksgiving is also a Eucharistic holiday. The word Eucharist literally means “thanksgiving.” Every Sunday, we come to the altar not because life is perfect, but because God is good. We bring our ordinary week – our joys, our regrets, our exhaustion, and we place it in Jesus’ hands. He receives it, blesses it, and gives himself back to us as nourishment for the journey. That is gratitude at its deepest level: not a polite pause before the meal, but a way of living that says, “Lord, everything belongs to you.”
So this week, maybe we can practice a gratitude that goes beyond the obvious. Thank God for the people who have shaped you, for the doors that opened and the ones that closed, for the lessons you didn’t want but needed. And if you’re carrying sorrow this year, let gratitude be small and honest: the breath in your lungs, a friend who checked in, a memory that still makes you smile. God doesn’t demand performance. He welcomes a heart that turns toward him.
May this Thanksgiving leave us not just full, but awake, able to recognize the quiet abundance of God in our lives, and ready to share that abundance with others.
