To pray and feast and give thanks

Art by Susan Daily, ibvm

On Monday we celebrated Thanksgiving at Loretto College – my first Thanksgiving with the community here – and what a joyful celebration it was! With guests from near and far, we gathered together to pray and feast and give thanks for the blessings in our lives. For me, it was an experience of family, of friendship, and of the interdependence of community that marks religious life. Each person’s contribution to the gathering was a gift to be enjoyed.

As I draw nearer to first profession, I am spending time in gratitude. Gratitude for all of the people in my life, for all of the twists and turns of my life that have led me thus far, and for all of the graces God has given me and continues to give.

As I dwell in gratitude, I have been drawn to the poetry of Malcolm Guite. I savour his poems and have prayed with them over the past several months. I share with you his poem on Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving starts with thanks for mere survival,

Just to have made it through another year
With everyone still breathing. But we share
So much beyond the outer roads we travel;
Our interweavings on a deeper level,
The modes of life embodied souls can share,
The unguessed blessings of our being here,
The warp and weft that no one can unravel.

So I give thanks for our deep coinherence
Inwoven in the web of God’s own grace,
Pulling us through the grave and gate of death.
I thank him for the truth behind appearance,
I thank him for his light in every face,
I thank him for you all, with every breath.

– Malcolm Guite

You can listen to Malcolm read his poem here.