Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift of His Son, and all things with Him.
And for you, Mark. Your life and work are an inspiration. Blessings on your head, mazel tov, mazel tov.
Kathie
Thank you Lord, through your Son our Savior, for countless mercies and graces given to such an unworthy creature. Thank you for seeing fit to bring a hardened and self-deceived atheist such as me into your Church. May the Holy Spirit give me the strength to soften others' hearts to the Church, as he has softened my own. Thank you Blessed Mary, for being my own mother. And thanks to Mark Shea for his blog and his website 
.
That "anonymous" is me .
I'm not a catholic, but my best friend is. He keeps sending me links to this site, and I keep reading them. And despite myself, I love it. Happy Thanksgiving Mark Shea you wonderful blogger you.
For salvation and forgiveness through Jesus Christ...
For a wife who continues to surprise and humble me...
For a toddler daughter who amazes as she grows...
For an unborn son who kicks like a World Cup first-teamer...
For family and friends who love and correct...
For hot coffee enjoyed in a cozy home on a wintry Saturday...
For a minivan which totes around my growing brood and its necessities...
For a profession which can still deliver something that, at the end of the day, looks an awful lot like justice...
For these and all the blessings you have rained upon this unworthy, thank you, Lord.
God's Grandeur
THE world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
After seeing my two boys brought into the world I realized with much appreciation that God has not yet given up on us. For this and the companionship of my wife am I most grateful.
I am thankful for my cross, without it I would really think I was something. I am thankful for the want to conform myself to Christ and the Church He established rather than finding a church that conformed to me. I am thankful beyond words for my wife and her reception into the Church this last Easter Vigil. And, Thank you to Fr. Frietag our parish priest. Without his dedication to preaching the true Catholic faith regardless of how unpopular the teachings might be, my wife would have never "come aboard".
For my teenage boys, growing into handsome manhood, who still kiss my cheek and say, "thanks for dinner, Mom."
For my pre-teen daughter, who considers me her confidante and thinks I'm fun. For her fresh-faced innocence and her uninhibited, blithe ways.
For my longsuffering, long-commuting husband, who still has a twinkle in his eye and his charming sense of humor twenty years after "I do", whose company and point of view are better than anything.
For my parents and my brothers and sister, (all of us aging year by year)and their loyal love.
For my friends and their fun companionship.
For my home, and a fire in the fireplace and a movie in the vcr and a blanket to curl up in on a cold, rain-soaked night.
For my silly Brittany puppy who makes us all laugh ourselves half to death.
For all of God's gifts, most especially His gift of Himself on the Cross and in the Eucharist.
May He be praised. Amen
In Thanksgiving for all the eloquent parishioners in St. Blogs, who....
make me happy, and sad, and sometimes MAD....but ultimately keep me focused on the true race,,,the true goal.
God bless us every one!
God, I wonder at your glory and greatness, when I consider the series of wonders great and small that had to go just right for this next breath. Energies, atoms, universal constants, suns, and cosmic dust - all exactingly right. Not only right for me, but also for your beloved infant son to take his first breath - so full it was of the wonderdrous smells of hay and donkey and fresh swaddling clothes. Even more exactingly right for his last anguished breath - so permeated with the sweat and blood of his most generous cross of hope.
If I had a breath of thanks for each star in the heavens, it would not be enough. Instead I stand here with a heart of thanksgiving and a vain prayer that more of my "next" breaths be of thankfulness than forgetfulness. I say vain, because for even this, "my" thanksgiving, you have provided a perfect offering,a perfect thanksgiving -- Eucharist.
All praise and love
Thank you God for my existence in the deeps of time and amid enumerable stars.
Thank you for my immortal soul and the grace to know and to love you.
Thanks for all the other people you have sent into my life to bless me and test my love.
And thank you dear Lord for this wonderful spring of sanity in the desert that we have made of our culture.
Thank you Mark for all of your work and caring. May your Thanksgiving Day by joyful, warm, and memorable!
For all of the above! Couldn't have said it better!
Commenting by HaloScan
