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Thursday, November 26, 2009 3:08 PM CST
Clergy Views: Let us give thanks like our siblings did 444 years ago



More than 50 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock on Sept. 8, 1565, Captain General of the Indies Fleet Don Pedro Menendez De Aviles and 1,200 colonists landed at St. Augustine, Spanish Florida.

Chaplain Father Francisco was the first to step ashore and then welcomed the captain. The captain knelt and kissed the cross in an act of reverence imitated by the crew and passengers as the native Timacua Indians watched every move with great interest.

A Mass was celebrated in honor of the nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Thanksgiving meal that followed did not include turkey, but rather stew made of salt pork and garbanzo beans, complemented with bread and red wine.

The Greek word used in the gospel for Thanksgiving Day (Luke 17:11-19/”The Healing of the Ten Lepers”), describes how the Samaritan leper approached Jesus, “giving him thanks.” “Eucaristeo” is the same as the root for the word “Eucharist,” and it has the same sense of thanksgiving for an unmerited gift.

Ten lepers are physically healed in the Gospel account and only one returns to give thanks and is told that he is saved.

Salvation, eternal life with God, is an unmerited gift that transcends any healing this world can offer. It is borne in the response of a grateful heart that recognizes the Lord.

The more we ponder everything the Eucharist is meant to do in us — free us from the power of sin, unite us to Christ and those who belong to Christ, fill our lives with God’s transforming grace — the more we can find joy and thanksgiving in our lives.

Like the Samaritan, we are all sojourners in a foreign land.

None of us have anything we have not received from the hands of a generous God.

Like the lepers, our infirmities and neediness should help us to see our common bond. We all need each other and possess a need that only God can truly fill.

Like our grateful brothers and sisters in St. Augustine 444 years ago, let us give thanks to Christ so that He can continue to use us to be His hands and feet and voice in our needy world today.


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