As the turbulent calendar year 2020 draws to a close many in our nation this Thanksgiving will be thinking twice about what blessings there are for which to be grateful. Rampant violence, the pandemic, lockdowns, economic duress, et ceteracertainly call into question our national wellbeing. Perhaps most distressing is the bitter polarization that has robbed us of our humanity andour civility. What’s there to be thankful for?
It is a reasonable question. But let’s remember: we still have the gift of freedom. With so many limitations imposed on us these past months it is understandable that this slips our mind. However, in spite of unrelenting vicissitude, lest we lose them we must acknowledge and be grateful for the freedoms we continue to possess. Paramount among them is the free exercise of religion, and in this regard our national gratitude should be matched by our national concern. Religion is the safeguard of our human dignity. Its diminishment is our diminishment. Does this time-tested reality resonate with us, with our populace? For how many of us will this coming Thursday be a celebration of familial companionship and nothing more?
In fact, how many of us – lured by the meretricious distraction of consumerism and the false persuasion of relativism – reject the distinguishing orthodoxy and orthopraxy of our hereditary faith and embrace the uncultured social, moral and philosophical mores of our time? Are we like the Jewish youths in the First Book of Maccabees who in violation of their religion built a gymnasium in Jerusalem (from the Greek word ‘gymnos’ for ‘naked’) and aping the Gentile custom “disguised their circumcision and abandoned the holy covenant”?
Is the loud din of consumerism so stupefying that we scarcely notice our abdication not just of religious freedom but of religion itself – regardless of whether the abdication is by coercion or by seduction. In his ‘Fratelli Tutti’ Pope Francis alarms us about the consequences of a God-less society:
“….we, the believers of the different religions, know that our witness to God benefits our societies. The effort to seek God with a sincere heart, provided it is never sullied by ideological or self-serving aims, helps us to recognize one another as travelling companions, truly brothers and sisters. We are convinced that ‘when, in the name of an ideology, there is an attempt to remove God from a society, that society ends up adoring idols, and very soon men and women lose their way, their dignity is trampled and their rights violated. You know well how much suffering is caused by the denial of freedom of conscience and of religious freedom, and how that wound leaves a humanity which is impoverished, because it lacks hope and ideals to guide it ‘”(274)
Today’s feast of Christ the King ends the liturgical year. Let us pray that the coming year reawakens in all of us that awareness of the Sacred that fortifies our hope and assures our humanity.
On behalf of the trustees of the National Catholic Community Foundation I wish all of you a blessed, happy and virus free Thanksgiving.