Thanksgiving

Isn't it beautiful how so many things on earth are little glimpses into heaven?

As I prepare for Thanksgiving Day I am very busy about my kitchen. I'm thinking about my family and working hard to prepare a special day filled with good things to make them happy and to show them how much I love them. This labor of love is also an act of thanksgiving to God for His abundant blessings of love and care showered upon me and my family. God is so pleased when we love and care for the ones He has given us. This one little family of father, mother, six children, fiances, grandparents, aunts and uncles is a small reflection of a greater reality.

We have a bigger family. Our heavenly family. God is our Father. Jesus is our Brother. Mary is our Mother. We all belong to this family along with Sister Marie. She is our sister. As our sister she is always diligently working within our heavenly family for our best interests; both temporal and eternal. She loves to sister us! Just as we are working right now to prepare for Thanksgiving, Sister Marie works to prepare for us good things of a heavenly nature. She understands the heavenly family now in a special way. I can see her running to our mother Mary and Our Lord and brother Jesus with all our cares and worries so that They might bring these things to the Father. She wants the banquet to be "just right" because she awaits her family.

The first few words of the Sister Marie Prayer are an act of thanksgiving. "We thank God ..." On Thanksgiving day let us remember that our family is not limited to those precious ones sitting at our tables in our homes. There is a heavenly banquet awaiting us with all God's family in our home of heaven. And one day we will join our Sister Marie there with all the saints and angels for the most magnificent eternal Thanksgiving. Let us invite Sister Marie and the rest of our heavenly family to join us at our Thanksgiving tables but know that just around the corner, in the next room, the heavenly banquet is divine and they are waiting for us! I look forward to meeting you there.