Fr. Kosicki’s “Happy Thanksgiving”
Posted On November 8, 2005
Greetings & blessings!
I’d like to share with you a phrase that could change your life.
I’m writing this on Thanksgiving day in front of the Blessed Sacrament, thinking about how appropriate it is that Eucharist means thanksgiving.
And it struck me that the greeting “Happy Thanksgiving” is actually a prescription, because, more than anything else, it’s the practice of thanksgiving that brings real happiness.
It reminds me of a little gem of spiritual direction I received from Fr. George Kosicki.
Through the years, several such gems have stayed with me and helped me grow. Over and over, Fr. George has urged me: “Rejoice always! … Trust even more! … Dedicate yourself to thanksgiving!”
This past year (the 50th anniversary of his ordination), he shared a phrase he had heard God speaking to his heart many years ago:
“To please me, be present to me in the heart of Mary, trusting, rejoicing, and giving thanks.”
It’s all about pleasing God! That’s the desire that will help us put everything else in our lives into proper perspective. Our real agenda as Christians is to come to want what God wants.
If you want to be happy, free from stress, and fulfilled as a person throughout all the “good and bad” moments of your life, begin each day with a 3-second prayer: “Lord, help me to please you today.”
Then hear him remind you: “To please me, be present to me.”
The most important truth of all is that God is always present to us, always embracing us with a tender, personal, one-on-one love (especially in the Eucharist).
But he doesn’t force himself on us. He waits for us to respond by being present to him, moment-to-moment, actively receiving his love.
How? By joining in Mary’s yes. “Yes, Lord, let it be. Yes, Lord, take flesh in me, be born in me, live in me, right now. Fiat. Let it be done.”
By her “fiat,” Mary was the first to receive Communion, the first to respond with joy and thanksgiving as she began a new life as a living tabernacle of God’s presence for others.
When we learn to live in Mary’s heart, we gradually become able to live, like her, in a state of constant yes to God, “trusting, rejoicing, and giving thanks.”
By the time you read this, it will be Advent, a perfect time for spiritual renewal. I promise you, if you spend the Advent and Christmas season meditating on this simple little phrase from Fr. Kosicki, praying on it, talking to God about it, and practicing it until it becomes engraved in you, it will change your life.
You will gradually become aware of an inner happiness that doesn’t come and go according to the ups and downs of your day, but remains with you and keeps you secure in God’s love.
Through the proclamations of our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, we have just journeyed through the Year of the Rosary and have begun the Year of the Eucharist.
Make no mistake; this is no coincidence. The two are intimately related. The Year of the Rosary was to help us discover how to “contemplate with Mary the face of Jesus.” And now the pope is urging us to continue that program, allowing Mary, as the “Woman of the Eucharist,” to lead us deeper into Eucharistic worship and help us “imitate her in her relationship with this most holy mystery.”
Every time you go to Communion, unite yourself first with Mary, and when the priest says, “The Body of Christ,” don’t just respond with an absent-minded “Amen.” Let your “Amen” be a real participation in the “fiat” Mary said for us all: “Yes, Lord. Let it be done. Take flesh in me.” Then try to remain present to him, “in the heart of Mary, trusting, rejoicing, and giving thanks.”
Happy Thanksgiving! All year long!