Transcript of Abbot Clement=s Thanksgiving Day Sermon, Thursday, November 25, 2004
That a nation should have a holiday of Thanksgiving is an act of God
=s providence of no small amount because to be in the mode of Thanksgiving is to awaken the spirit. We as monks have a lot more involved and invested in this feast because it also manifests where we are in humility. When we really reach some kind of depth of the sixth and seventh degree of humility, it sounds in the Rule kind of negative, that we begin to be aware of our poverty and our nothingness but there are some positive statements in the sixth and seventh degree, but the real positive is missing, that is, it=s not explicit in the text. To the degree that you have reached the sixth and seventh degree of humility to any kind of degree, you begin to realize that the total life that you have is a gift. The total life that you have is a gift. It means you have come to see something of what creation is all about. That psalm 139 is real for you, that God has known you before you were conceived in your mother=s womb and borne into this world. Since God is no dummy and knows what he=s doing, you were chosen and given the gift of your life. Not only the gift of your physical life but with an intention to give you the fullness of life in the participation in the life of the Trinity.So the monk is a person of deep gratitude to the degree that he is practicing humility. First and foremost with himself. Grateful for his life and grateful for all that he has been given, because everything I have has been given to me. Whether I look at my physical being or my psychological being or my growth and so many skills and abilities, insights, just ordinary skills, how many people in the world are deprived of skills because their parents never taught them things. They just don
=t have it.If we begin in that direction then what about the monastery we are all indebted to a lot of benefactors, not just in the past that made our shelter rather comfortable but as Br. Ted told us yesterday that the past two years we have not had to even dig into our savings the Lord has provided more than abundantly. We have tons of things to be grateful for but in a certain sense those are not the most important gratitude’s that we should be expressing today.
Let
=s just take one point, we are a people, as Benedictines, and in our life style we=re submerged in the Word of God. A Word of God is addressed to us in the Office, in the Mass, in spiritual reading. And this Word is not passing. It penetrates. It has power. If we let it into our hearts it can activate and do things in our hearts. It can penetrate our darkness. It can convert us. It can transform us. It can embrace us. It=s not just any kind of word it=s a word that=s spoken to us in love. It springs from the infinite love of God for you and me.On that point alone we have enough reason to spend at least fifteen minutes in private prayer to thank the Lord today. But we must gather around the altar because this is the thanksgiving, the Eucharist means thanksgiving. In union with Christ we offer to the Father in the spirit the greatest act of gratitude we can make today that
=s what we=re doing right now. Not only that, this pleases God very much because he sees in our gratitude because it=s united to Jesus the full gratitude, the incomprehensible vast gratitude of his Son.But that doesn
=t excuse us from showing our gratitude for the many blessings that are ours by just taking one Word of God in our life. It means that we show our gratitude by the way we live. So this is also an opportunity to reflect on the core of our existence. Am I becoming more intimate with Jesus? What does that mean? Is my heart awakening and thirsting for that Word? Do I really want to see Jesus? Do I really want to know Him? If you allow the Word to come into your heart you can begin to know Jesus. It=s there it=s in your life. Am I devoted to Jesus? Is He the most important person in my life? Is my prayer life alive and vibrant and do I walk the journey with the Lord?We want to do this all in the spirit of humility. It
=s possible to be fully aware of our poverty, our failures, our inadequacy in response to God=s infinite and multiple graces and still be righteous in the righteousness of Jesus by loving God and by beginning to know more deeply Jesus= love for me and even some insight that I love Jesus.So it
=s important for us to gather here and really say thank you with our whole being but also consciously in acts of thanksgiving because the acts are the way we grow in virtue. Both the communal act of worship together and personal prayer time and the effort to be faithful to the gifts we have been given.