Giving thanks...

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am in New York, preparing for a Day of Recollection I'm giving Sunday for Saint Meinrad Archabbey's oblate chapter here. In the meantime, my confrere Fr. Meinrad (the oblate director) and I are enjoying some sight-seeing and the generous hospitality of two oblates in Farmingdale on Long Island--Paul and Irene Muhs.

This is my first-ever visit to the New York City area. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Fr. Meinrad and I took the train into Manhattan to see all the requisite sights (downtown and midtown), and today we are enjoying a day of rest and gratitude with the Muhs (perhaps more restful for Fr. Meinrad and I than the Muhs, God bless them). I may post more about all of this here at a later date. In the meantime, above is a piece that I found particularly striking yesterday during our visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is a Dutch carving out of oak from the early 15th century called "Apostles in Prayer." Of course, the Met has much grander pieces -- "Washington Crossing the Delaware," the Temple of Dendur, the Frank Lloyd Wright collection (including an entire room from a house he built in Minnesota), and several vibrant  Tiffany glass windows were among my favorites -- but this relatively small, intimate, and prayerful sculpture seems most fitting for the posture of reverence and gratitude we do well to recall on this Thanksgiving Day (and every day, for that matter).

Tomorrow, we go into the city again for the highlight of the sight-seeing (for me, anyway), a visit to the Cloisters Museum on the Hudson -- think medieval and monastic!

Until then, a Happy Thanksgiving to all, and may all give God thanks and praise.

The Plan

The mysteries of Jesus are not yet completely perfected and fulfilled. They are complete, indeed, in the person of Jesus, but not in us, who are his members, nor in the Church, which is his mystical body. The Son of God wills to give us a share in his mysteries and somehow to extend them to us. He wills to continue them in us and in his universal Church. This is brought about first through the graces he has resolved to impart to us and then through the works he wishes to accomplish in us through these mysteries. This is his plan for fulfilling his mysteries in us.

For this reason Saint Paul says that Christ is being brought to fulfillment in his Church and that all of us contribute to this fulfillment, and thus he achieves the fullness of life, that is, the mystical stature that he has in his mystical body, which will reach completion only on judgment day. In another place Paul says: I complete in my own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.

This is the plan by which the Son of God completes and fulfills in us all the various stages and mysteries. He desires us to perfect the mystery of his incarnation and birth by forming himself in us and being reborn in our souls through the blessed sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. He fulfills his hidden life in us, hidden with him in God.

He intends to perfect the mysteries of his passion, death and resurrection, by having us participate in his suffering, death, and resurrection, with him and in him. Finally, he wishes to fulfill in us the state of his glorious and immortal life, when he will cause us to live a glorious, eternal life, with him and in him, in heaven.

--St. John Eudes

O God, hear our voice

To the Creator of nature and man,

of truth and beauty, I pray:

Hear my voice,

for it is the voice of the victims

of all wars and violence

among individuals and nations.

Hear my voice,

for it is the voice of all children

who suffer and will suffer

when people put their faith

in weapons and war.

Hear my voice

when I beg you to instill

into the hearts of all human beings

the wisdom of peace,

the strength of justice,

and the joy of fellowship.

Hear my voice,

for I speak for the multitudes

in every country

and in every period of history

who do not want war

and are ready to walk the road of peace.

Hear my voice

and grant insight and strength

so that we may always respond to hatred with love,

to injustice with total dedication to justice,

to need with the sharing of self,

to war with peace.

O God, hear my voice

and grant unto the world

your everlasting peace.

Saint John Paul II

De Profundis

"Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord,

and let perpetual light shine upon them."

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord,

Lord, hear my voice!

O let your ears be attentive

to the voice of my pleading.

If you, O Lord, should mark our guilt,

Lord, who would survive?

But with you is found forgiveness:

for this we revere you.

My soul is waiting for the Lord,

I count on his word.

My soul is longing for the Lord

more than watchmen for daybreak.

Let the watchmen count on daybreak

and Israel on the Lord.

Because with the Lord there is mercy

and fullness of redemption,

Israel indeed he will redeem

from all its iniquity.

Psalm 130