SPEAKER_00: Today, the Universal Church celebrates the Feast of the Miraculous Medal, a gift heaven placed directly into our hands.
SPEAKER_00: I was so happy to see all the people that came out last night for the prayer vigil.
SPEAKER_00: In eighteen thirty, our lady appeared to St.
SPEAKER_00: Catherine Labaray and offered the world a medal overflowing with graces, a medal marked with these words, O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
SPEAKER_00: It was heaven's way of saying, You are not alone.
SPEAKER_00: I am your mother.
SPEAKER_00: I will intercede for you.
SPEAKER_00: And what is the miraculous metal if not an invitation to gratitude?
SPEAKER_00: It reminds us that God has woven mercy into the very fabric of who we are, that grace is poured out even before we ask for it.
SPEAKER_00: And that Mary, the Immaculate One, walks with us as a sign of God's tenderness.
SPEAKER_00: And so on this Thanksgiving day, when our nation pauses to remember its blessings, the miraculous medal calls us to look deeper, to see that behind every gift stands the giver, behind every grace, a mother who intercedes.
SPEAKER_00: Behind every blessing, a God who loves without measure.
SPEAKER_00: And so today across this great nation, millions will gather around the table, filled with family laughter, food, and football.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And yet here in this church, we begin Thanksgiving exactly where it should begin.
SPEAKER_00: Not at the table, but at the altar.
SPEAKER_00: Before, because before America ever had a Thanksgiving day, the church had the Eucharist.
SPEAKER_00: The great Eucharist, the great Thanksgiving, the offering in which we remember that everything we have, everything we are, every breath we take flows from the hand of God.
SPEAKER_00: Thanksgiving is not just a holiday.
SPEAKER_00: Thanksgiving is a truth.
SPEAKER_00: We belong to God who gives.
SPEAKER_00: And gratitude is how we live in right relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_00: As Americans, we are heirs of a story unlike any other nation on earth.
SPEAKER_00: We were born from a conviction that freedom is a gift from God, not a privilege from a government.
SPEAKER_00: Our founding documents begin not with our accomplishments, but with our Creator.
SPEAKER_00: Our history, at its best, has always understood that gratitude and faith are guardians of liberty.
SPEAKER_00: But to understand Thanksgiving, we have to go back to the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: We often imagine the first Thanksgiving as we celebrate it as kids in school.
SPEAKER_00: Colorful scenes with pilgrims and Indians, overflowing tables.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is far more moving.
SPEAKER_00: When the pilgrims gathered in 1621, half of their community had died from the first brutal winter.
SPEAKER_00: Half of that community.
SPEAKER_00: Men, women, and children, every single member of that community was grieving the death of a family one.
SPEAKER_00: They had buried mothers in frozen grounds.
SPEAKER_00: They had buried their children, buried their fathers, their brothers.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, what did they do?
SPEAKER_00: They paused, lowered, bowed their heads, and thanked God.
SPEAKER_00: They did not thank him because life was easy.
SPEAKER_00: They thanked him because life was hard, and yet God had not abandoned them, and that they had the freedom to worship.
SPEAKER_00: They thanked him because gratitude is not about abundance.
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude is a declaration of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude is what you say when you choose trust over despair.
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude is what happens when the soul sees God's presence even in the shadows.
SPEAKER_00: That first thanksgiving teaches us something the modern world forgets.
SPEAKER_00: Abundance does not create gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude creates abundance.
SPEAKER_00: Because gratitude opens the heart, clears the vision, strengthens the soul, and reminds us that our blessings do not come from our circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: They come from God.
SPEAKER_00: George Washington understood this truth when in 1789 he proclaimed the first national thanksgiving and asked the people to give thanks to the great Lord, the ruler of nations, for the civil and religious privileges that we enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: Even at the dawn of our republic, our leaders knew that a nation that forgets gratitude forgets God.
SPEAKER_00: And a nation that forgets God forgets who they are.
SPEAKER_00: And so today we stand in a lineage, a sacred chain that stretches from the pilgrim's wooden tables to this very altar.
SPEAKER_00: And the question is no longer about them, it's about us.
SPEAKER_00: What does gratitude look like in your life today?
SPEAKER_00: What does Thanksgiving look like in your family, your marriage, your worries, your hopes?
SPEAKER_00: Because the gospel teaches us something powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude is not an emotion.
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude is a choice.
SPEAKER_00: Only one came back to say thank you.
SPEAKER_00: It should be a spiritual discipline.
SPEAKER_00: It's a way of seeing the world.
SPEAKER_00: If you think you have problems, if you're suffering from sadness or from a recent death of a loved one, someone has it far worse than you.
SPEAKER_00: To be Christian is to be grateful because gratitude says, I know where my blessings come from.
SPEAKER_00: I know who sustains me, and I know that without him I am nothing.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we gather today.
SPEAKER_00: Not to celebrate a vague sense of gratefulness, but to proclaim with our whole hearts that God has been good to us, even when life has been hard.
SPEAKER_00: Especially when life has been hard.
SPEAKER_00: So today I want to speak to your hearts.
SPEAKER_00: If you're carrying a burden, a sadness, a difficulty, be grateful.
SPEAKER_00: God is carrying you.
SPEAKER_00: If you're grieving, be grateful.
SPEAKER_00: Love is never lost in God.
SPEAKER_00: If you're uncertain about the future, be grateful.
SPEAKER_00: He goes before you.
SPEAKER_00: If you're feeling blessed, be grateful.
SPEAKER_00: He is near to the humble of heart.
SPEAKER_00: May this thanksgiving awaken us what it awakened in the pilgrims, what it awakened in George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and in generation of believers.
SPEAKER_00: A deep and study, a steady conviction that God is faithful, that he is present and that he is our beginning and our end, and that gratitude is the path on which we walk with him.
SPEAKER_00: And together with our Lady of the Miraculous Meadow, may we remember that God has not left us to walk this path alone.
SPEAKER_00: He has given us his mother, the Immaculate One, who outstretches her hands on the metal, pouring out graces to all those who seek her intercession.
SPEAKER_00: May her gentle presence remind us that every blessing flows from the heart of her son, and that with Mary beside us, gratitude becomes not only our prayer, but our way of life.
SPEAKER_00: Father Adam, Father Alonso, and I will remember you in our intentions.
SPEAKER_00: May God bless you.
SPEAKER_00: Happy thanksgiving to you and to all whom you love, and may God guide, bless, and protect these United States of America.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.