by Fred Moleck

To Give You Thanks and Praise

On Thursday of this week “Now Thank We All Our God,” “We Gather Together,” “Father, We Thank Thee Who Hast Planted,” and “Let All Things Now Living” will resound through “spacious skies” and waft through “amber waves of grain” and bounce to and from “purple mountain majesties” and settle into the “fruited plain.”

These items are the backbone of the music programs for the Mass of Thanksgiving in hundreds of American Catholic parishes. For many of us, the Thanksgiving Mass in the parish is one of the highlights in our ministry throughout the year.

The singing is usually full and exciting. Maybe it’s because the folks who are there want to be there and have a reason to sing.
There are outward displays of charity and care in the baskets of food encircling the altar or wherever they are stacked. American Catholics love to praise and give thanks on this day, which smacks of an unofficial holy day in the American Church.

We spend a good chunk of time preparing for this liturgy in rehearsal and probably preparing a worship leaflet. It is all worth it. But, what about our own private prayers of thanks? What I am suggesting is that you try to find a quiet, lonely place and spend a few moments in going over the many things why we should thanks.

After those few moments, linger over the words of some newer texts that eloquently speak of God’s creation, of gratitude, of humble dependence on God’s goodness. To sum up your thanks-laden meditation, I suggest this text by John Dalles. It is number 33 in his Swift Currents and Still Waters, G-5366. It sings well to KINGSFOLD.

O God, behold your fam’ly here
assembled by your call.
We give you thanks, for hearth and home—
your love unites us all—
We give you thanks for peace this day,
hope for tomorrow’s dawn,
for health, for work, for rest, for play,
the earth we dwell upon.

O give us courage, give us joy,
grant us a quiet mind.
Unto our friends, your care employ;
make our opponents kind.
O bless us, God, if it may be,
in all our daily ways,
give us the strength, continually,
for all our future days.

In times of peril, make us brave,
and constant in distress.
O make us temp’rate ne’er to rave
in failure or success.
So from the moment of our birth
down to the gates of death,
may all we do display your worth
by love and righteousness.

Shape us as clay in potter’s hands,
as vessels fair and good.
Turn us as windmills to the wind,
to function as we should.
Raise us as children; help us grow,
our Parent, by your plan.
O bless us now, where’er we go,
for Jesus’ sake, Amen!

Happy Thanksgiving.
Baruch atah Adonai Elohenu.