They say that nothing makes you more grateful for what you have at home than going on the road. And that was certainly my experience during a recent two-week trip to Germany to report on the state of the Catholic Church there.
My earliest memories are of living in an apartment with my parents in a row house on Pittsburgh’s South Side, a stone’s throw from the mills that had attracted generations of immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe. For a child, South Side was urban living at its best.
As news spread of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on abortion June 24 in a case that stemmed from Mississippi’s law barring most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Minnesota’s Catholic bishops and others responded with gratitude and concern.
As I reflect on our recent Synod Assembly, the words that our patron, St. Paul, addressed to the Philippians come to mind: “Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God” (Phil. 1:3). I have been overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude each time I think of how God has blessed this local Church through the willingness of so many to be part of our Archdiocesan Synod. The liturgies, presentations, discussions and voting were all manifestations for me of the presence of the Holy Spirit and of the rich blessings that God has bestowed upon us.
For the first two decades of my life, the song “over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go” meant, among other things, being treated to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner courtesy of my maternal grandmother.
“How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me? The cup of salvation I will take up, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. My vows to the Lord I will fulfill in the presence of all his people” (Ps 116:12-14).
Father George Welzbacher’s priestly vocation of 70 years traces back to his childhood in St. Paul. He spent his first six years on Grand Avenue just half a block west of Lexington Avenue.
November is the month of gratitude, the month in which we celebrate Thanksgiving and the beginning of the busy holiday season. All the year round, however, some people keep a gratitude journal, in which they focus on the positive aspects of their day, noting these events rather than focusing on what did not go well.
In our first reading from the second letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians (2 Cor 8:1-9), Paul extolled the quality of being gracious. For him, being gracious is not just being kind, generous and community minded. It is the gratitude of the heart in response to the abundant grace of God in Jesus Christ. It is giving our entire lives to God. It is imitating Christ, who emptied himself that we may be filled with the treasures of heaven.
It’s so easy to see the things that are imperfect, drive us crazy or are disappointing in our lives. We know that allowing ourselves to focus on these aspects of life is not uplifting or energizing, and yet, if that’s what we’ve been doing, that’s where we so often go. Allowing ourselves to change our focus is often easier said than done. But it is possible, and, for lasting happiness, necessary.
