Celebrating Thanksgiving today 2017

Celebrating this day of Thanksgiving with loved ones and friends, I thought this morning at Divine Liturgy that what is crucial is diving into what really matters, what we’ve been given by the Lord —the most holy of giving thanks. It is the Holy Eucharist, instituted by the Lord Jesus “on the night he was betrayed and entered willingly into his passion.”

Here we see the root of our life: The Lord in His Life-Giving sacrifice shows us the relationship between His infinite mercy, justice and His love. We participate in Lord’s kenosis inviting us to assent to deification in the Life of the Trinity in a synergistic way. This is our sacred, divine Liturgy.

“I give thanks to you, my sweetness, my honor,
my confidence;
to you, my God, I give thanks for your gifts.
Do you preserve them for me.
So will you preserve me too,
and what you have given me will grow and reach perfection,
and I will be with you; because this too is your gift to me
—that I exist.”

-Saint Augustine, Confessions