Transcript of Abbot Clement= s Thanksgiving Day Homily November 22, 2007

God= s gifts are infinite and his goodness is infinite and so our Thanksgiving is infinite and because it= s infinite, it=s frustrating.

For me this Thanksgiving is really focused on the great gift of faith that God has given me. The reason is I’ve been reading a rather prominent psychologist who is in cohorts with others who are trying to define what is a good human being. That= s a lot of work in the field of psychology because first of all they are scientists and they have to figure out what they call scales and these tools and have questions and they have to find the right questions, make sure they= re worded correctly then check them and recheck them, counter groups that don= t have it, etc., so it takes a long time even to get a good scale so that it really proves something.

This group of psychologists have come up with what they call the five factor model. In the five factor model the first factor is, you wouldn’t believe it, is we= re all neurotic. For the secular world on the scientific level to make that kind of statement is a tremendous amount of effort and it= s not yet over with because you’ve got a lot of atheists among the psychologists as well and they= re going to buck that stuff. But since the tools are now more effective and they can show significant difference it is now beginning to be accepted for this process to be complete. I= ll probably be in heaven playing a harp before it= s fully accepted in the field, but this is a tremendous thrust forward and solvent.

Now you and I when we were young we already knew this truth but we didn’t express it that way. We were told that the human race suffers the consequences of original sin. Then, of course, when we talk about the consequences of original sin are precisely that the mind is darkened and the will is weakened. So here you are you have the gift of faith already as a little child that these people, searching for solid truth in their adult life, work like fools just to come up a truth that we pick for nothing.

The second factor is that we have to be extroverts, but that= s not the way they say it, they say you have to have extroversion, which of course this is common sense. But now you= ve got to prove this stuff so extrovert simply means you have eyes to see, you have ears to hear, mouth to speak, obviously you are made to communicate with other people and the world. So what they try to show is the scale in which you are actually on that mode of relating to people socially. But it= s a truth that we have been pounded with from the time we are capable of listening to anybody that we= ve got to love our neighbor, even our enemies. Not saying that we do it the way we should but we know the truth.

The third factor is that we have to be open. These are psychologists so therefore they are really concerned about this question just how open you are because they= re dealing with people and they= re dealing with scales that show that people are not open and we know what it= s like when people are in a state of dementia or some kind of paranoid they don= t acknowledge that they= re paranoid, they= re not open. So openness implies that you have a certain amount of emotional contact with the world and you can cover quite a range of emotional presence to the world. Our emotions are important. They put us in touch with both the good and the bad in a life around us and then because we are a consciousness there should be a certain amount of connectedness that we should see in these experiences. So again this is a tremendous amount of effort to really get down to something that= s crucial that we learned a long time ago. We= ve been told to stand in the truth and we have been given many opportunities to do so. A lot of us here are very strong about that question because that= s usually when we fight nice. It= s ok, it means we= re all searching for the truth.

The next one is agreeableness. That is, if you are in the mode of common good then you’re obviously going to be able to get along on what are basic insights. So they work very hard to get scales, it= s very hard to do this. They finally got this thing down.

The last one is the conscientiousness. Conscientiousness means that we have a certain amount of a likeness to what is good or to put it another way we= re eager to keep our conscience pure. That= s a little bit Fr. Clement= s language rather than theirs but that= s what it seems to be aimed at. You and I have learned these things from our parents. That we are responsible beings and that we have to follow our conscience. And that we should be alive about it, not indifferent to evil, especially evil in our own life.

But then what Ralph Piedman has done in his group is saying this is not quite enough. We have to have a scale of transcendence. That= s the word they use. Of course we would say, faith. In other words, the psychological world, those who are the best in it are beginning to realize that man is a spirit and they= re trying to prove it. And they have found scales to do it. You would be surprised, because the scales you already know.

The first one is you have to have a manifestation of a prayer life. And a prayer life that has a certain amount of fruitfulness in it. So if you are discouraged or you are indifferent to your prayer life or you= re not really committed to a prayer life then your transcendent dimension is weak or worse. You knew this before you came to the novitiate.

Next one is a connectedness. Which means that if you are really in the spirit then you’re more real. And the third one is what I would call communion. They don= t use the word communion they use the word belonging. We need each other and we can= t grow without each other. So when we avoid each other, we are avoiding not only the other, we are avoiding our own growth. This is old hat. Two commandments, love God and love your neighbor.

So here we are gathering on the holiday of Thanksgiving trying to say thanks to God for his infinite goodness and he’s given us such a powerful gift. I= m just going to take one example and you can do the rest, the reflection. We believe that when we receive the Lord in the Eucharist that we receive his body, blood, soul, and divinity. If we receive his divinity it’s inseparable from the Father and the Son so we receive the Father and the Son, the Trinity. But if we receive the Trinity we just don= t receive some kind of word, Trinity. We receive something of the fullness, the reality of the Trinity, its fruitfulness, one word of saying it. Since Jesus is now in glory, and if we receive his body, blood, soul and divinity in his glory, we also receive the fruitfulness of Jesus= God manliness and we can have access to this at the Eucharist everyday or go visit Jesus in the tabernacle at any time. We have much to say thank you for.