Happy Thanksgiving

My Dear Parishioners,

I can’t believe that this coming Thursday is Thanksgiving. It just seems like we observed Labor Day. Time flies!!!!

Hopefully you can join us for our Thanksgiving Day Mass at 9:00AM. After Mass, we will offer the blessing of any food or beverage that you wish blessed for your Thanksgiving table.

One of my favorite Thanksgivings was when I was about ten years old. Our family was hosting Thanksgiving for both sides of the family. At that time, my family lived on Zeigler Road in Marlborough Township, Montgomery County. We were blessed with an acre of ground anda finished basement. We kids had plenty of room to run around and play while the adults stayed in and watched football, played cards, and laughed and told jokes.

What makes that Thanksgiving really memorable for me is that Mom forgot to turn on the oven. Everyone was so busy enjoying themselves that nobody realized that the turkey wasn’t cooking. It was only discovered when it was getting closer to the time for us to sit down and eat. Thankfully, everyone who came brought something, and so we still had a really nice Thanksgiving meal, minus the turkey. We also hada lot of laughs that day about the turkey, and it has become part of our family’s history and something that we still laugh about each year.

As I reminisce about that day, I cannot help to think that many of the people who were there on that Thanksgiving Day are no longer with us, including my own parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and even some cousins. Thankfully, this weekend we remember that we havea King that we can commend ourselves and our loved ones too with great trust and confidence. We can do so because He is a King whose nature is love. (1John: 4:8)

Our celebration of Christ the King is a celebration of true love. Our King came into this world so that He can be with us and that we can be with Him and have a loving relationship with Him. He chose for Himself the Wood of the Cross for His throne instead of a throne of gold. It was on that throne of the Holy Cross that He won for us our Salvation through the forgiveness of our sins. Now that is true love!!!!!!

We also remember that He is a King who is always with us so that we can be with Him, and He is always with us through our celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

Our Lord and King comes to us at each and every Mass and is really and truly present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. He is truly there in the Holy Eucharist that we adore and in the Holy Communion that we receive. It is a reminder that through our reception of Holy Communion that He remains in us and we remain in Him. Love is the reason we have the Holy Eucharist, and the Communion that we enter is a Communion of true love.

This loving Communion cannot be taken away. Even physical death cannot take away the loving Communion we have with Jesus and then through Jesus with our friends and loved ones. What a consoling thought! Jesus is so good to us!

Many families have the Thanksgiving Tradition of going around the table and asking everyone to mention something for which each is especially thankful. Hopefully this prayer can then help us gather these personal thanksgivings into one and bless the meal:

Dear God, we thank you for your goodness and your incredible generosity and the gifts that you bestow upon us. We thank You for the gift of this meal and for the gift of the hands that helped prepare it. We give You thanks most of all for the gift of Your Son, Jesus. Please bless the food we eat, all who are gathered today to share it, our conversation, our reminiscing, and all our loved ones who can’t be with us today. We ask this as we ask all things, through Christ, our Lord. Amen. (Hallow.com).

On behalf of Deacon Frank and our faithful staff, I do wish you and your families a very Happy Thanksgiving.

St. Joseph, Patron of the Church, and our Patron, pray for us!

Fr. Michael J Pawelko, Pastor