FAMILY AND THANKSGIVING
11/25/2018
FAMILY AND THANKSGIVING
(Happy Nameday for Katherines)
Fr. Al Demos, November 25, 2018
One of my vivid memories of Thanksgiving was that of my family joyfully sharing a delicious, very filling, laugh-filled feast. Afterward, my father and I would go out into the street on the south side of Chicago and toss or kick a football. My father could have been a professional kicker for the Bears because he could kick a football so high and so very far in the most beautiful spinning spiral you could ever see.
Inevitably, every Thanksgiving for three years, our game would end when the ball would sail into the window of our neighbor who lived down the street on the third floor. The gentle, timid neighbor would come out, football in his hand, asking my father why he had to break his window again each year. My father would apologize and temporarily repair the window until the next day when he would go to the hardware store to buy and fix the window replacement. After the third time that happened, we only passed the football from then on, no more kicking unless we went to a park.
What are your memories of Thanksgiving?
To jar your memory I offer the following thoughts, some which you might have experienced as well as others fondly held within your heart….the opportunities to:
- Share all your mutual interests in life with your parents, children, grandparents, family, friends, and neighbors.
- Teach a variety of personal abilities to one another while sharing in intellectual and cultural growth.
- Share in an open dialogue by having a more thorough understanding through solid communications, while accepting each open expression of thoughts and ideas, as well as concerns and feelings.
- Care about each other’s differences and different points of view.
- Accept realities that every person experiences some form of limitation, inadequacy, imperfection or “handicap”, whether it be physical, mental, spiritual, social, cultural or educational.
- Joyfully share and grow in your commitment to Jesus Christ as our Lord, God, King, and Saviour.
- Share in the inspiration of Faith experiences.
- Experience solidarity - as a family, as a Christian and as a member of God’s Eucharistic Family - the Church!
I pray that you truly experience Thanksgiving each and every day of your life!