St. Maria Goretti - Pastor's Note

Last weekend, at the end of my weekly note, I asked all of you to get ready for Thanksgiving, and to not forget to celebrate Thanksgiving before we move into Advent or Christmas. My fear was and is, that we are losing Thanksgiving. And an even bigger fear is that we are becoming less grateful than we used to be. And that’s a big problem with even bigger ramifications!

Then last Saturday morning, I read a paid advertisement in The Noblesville Ledger that echoed some of my same concerns. A number of you have also mentioned the advertisement to me. The advertisement was sponsored by “our friends at the Noblesville Clock Co”. The specific author was not mentioned, but from the text we can conclude that it was someone in a leadership position at the Noblesville Clock Co. Now, I had never heard of the Noblesville Clock Co. before. I’m not sure where they are located and I have never bought any of their products. But I was very impressed that a local business would take the stand that they did. Kudos to them! The ad was entitled “From SPOOKS to SANTA….how SAD!!!!” In case you didn’t get a chance to see their ad, here’s the portion that dealt with Thanksgiving…

“Many of us don’t realize how fortunate we are to have what we have. Years ago, we at least set aside one day to show our thanks. That day was called Thanksgiving and today we all but skip it. It’s not entirely our fault though. Retailers are so obsessed with beating the competition to the almighty Christmas dollar that we go from Spooks to Santa and we leave out the one and only day that our forefathers set aside to show THANKS. How SAD is that? Better yet, how did this happen? Have you personally ever heard anyone say, “I wish they’d bring out Christmas trees and decorations earlier?” Most of us are more and more appalled every year at how early they start the Christmas season. We all talk about it. And yet, are the people you do business with listening? Some Christmas parades are scheduled almost two weeks before the one day that used to set aside to give thanks. If nobody else is willing to say it then I personally will. THAT’S JUST PLAIN WRONG. Furthermore, by the time Christmas does get here, after hearing about it for almost two full months, many are glad when it’s over. Now they’ve even ruined Christmas for many as well. That’s wrong too but I’ll have to write about that another time. The question that I have is this: Can’t we get thru Thanksgiving first? Can’t we still set aside at least one day to show our thanks before greed sets in and we have to rush right into Christmas? It’s only one day and many of us have forgotten about it. Many have but we haven’t. We at the Noblesville Clock Co. still think it’s important to celebrate a day of thanks. We have lots to be thankful for. We’re thankful for our business. We’re thankful for our family. We’re thankful for our customers whom many have become personal friends. We’re thankful that our friends and customers continue to visit us and put food on our tables. We’re so thankful so thankful, that we still celebrate Thanksgiving!”

What a great reminder for all of us! I find it most interesting that these thoughts appeared in a paid advertisement, and not on the editorial page. Why can’t our secular media see these same things? I’m fairly certain that they don’t want to see or admit these things. As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this week, how important it is for all of us to really think about all those things that we are grateful for, and that we take for granted each and every day. It’s not Christmas. It’s not even Advent yet, and we’ve got four weeks of that before we get to Christmas. I’ll write more about that very soon. For now, let us count our blessings, let us say a prayer of thanksgiving to God for all that He has done for us and given us, and let us develop a true mindset of gratitude. We shouldn’t be grateful people for just one Thursday in late November. We should have a spirit of gratitude in our hearts each and every day! It’s not about turkey and dressing. It’s not about parades and football games on TV. And it is certainly NOT about going shopping on Friday at the crack of dawn. It’s about having a grateful heart. How’s yours?

Next weekend, we come to the end of our liturgical year with the great Feast of Christ the King! Come prepared next weekend to celebrate that Jesus is the Lord and King of our lives, and that He STILL does miracles. He is the perfect King!

Have a great week and a wonderful Thanksgiving! We’ll have Mass at 9:00 AM on Thursday.

In Christ,

Fr. Kevin

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