This past week, I was speaking with someone who is presently away visiting family in Canada. He said he’d be back after Thanksgiving there. I didn’t know when Canadians celebrate this holiday so I had to look it up, learning that it is actually this coming Monday.

This topic of thanksgiving is one that has re-surfaced for me lately.

I have realized that I don’t make an effort at gratitude as much during my daily life as I could or should. I am renewing my efforts. I was also recently visiting with a friend and the topic of making a point to give thanks throughout the day came up.

Have you ever thought about it?:

If someone gives a friend a gift or does them a favor but the recipient does not acknowledge it with at least a word of thanks, doesn’t that seem rude? God gives us even the very air we breath and our very existence. How often do we remember to say “Thank you?”

It “just so happens” that the readings this Sunday morning have very much to do with the topic of thanksgiving. We have the foreigner, Naaman, who just had to do something to show gratitude for his cure from leprosy; if he couldn’t give Elisha a gift for his healing, at least he wanted some soil from Israel on which to offer sacrifice of thanksgiving to God.

In keeping with this obvious theme in the readings, I chose the hymn: “Now Thank We All Our God” for the closing one at Mass. The titular words of this song also serve as a good reminder of when to give thanks: Now!

We should give thanks to God, in the now of our daily life, for the gifts that are constantly bestowed upon us. Gratitude is not just for Thanksgiving Day (American or Canadian).

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