JMJ
Thanksgiving: A Day of Gratitude
Thanksgiving is traditionally a day of counting one’s blessings. It is a day set aside to thank God for his generosity. It is not a day of football, feasting, and family. Thanksgiving is a day of thanking God. Thanking God. Thanking God. We do this with feasting, family, tradition, and celebration. Thanksgiving is not a political holiday and intends no offense to anyone. How is my gratitude offensive to another? Should any racial group or cultural group wish to exclude themselves due to an imperfect historical accounting of this holiday, I truly feel sorrow for them. There is much in our history that is untrue, ugly, and even downright evil, but to take a day that celebrates gratitude and hopes for peace is, and forgive my being blunt here, evil within itself. Would these people say “it is wrong to celebrate Earth Day or Arbor Day because man pollutes the earth and cuts down trees”? However, I am not here to debate the merits of Thanksgiving, but to discuss the demonic capitalist holiday of Black Friday that has sought to and successfully undermined a gratitude due to God and already so seldom given. Capitalism and love of money has already perverted the birth of Our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ (a topic for another time), and has over the last century changed “Thanksgiving” into “Thanks-getting”.
The Devil’s Holiday.
Thanksgiving has become “Black Friday’s Eve”. Even the name “Black Friday” suggests something dark and sinister. I am thinking here of terms like “Black Sabbath”. Consider the Last Supper traditionally celebrated on the Thursday preceding Good Friday the day of the supreme sacrifice. The Feast of the Last Supper in which Jesus celebrated a kind of Thanksgiving of the Passover and the following day gave His life for the redemption of Man. Here, in parallel, we now have what we call “Thanksgiving” on a Thursday preceding “Black Friday” an orgy of desire, want, false needs, and consumerism. People are already planning their Black Friday festivities in the days and weeks prior. Where they will go, how early they will arrive. I have even heard tale of paying people hourly wages to act as place holders in shopping lines as early as the Tuesday before. How is this being “Thankful” to God? If one cannot see the hand of the Evil One in this perversion, one, I would argue, is no longer a Human Being but had been converted, reborn if you will, into a new species, one has become a “Consumer Being” or “Consumer” for short. I think one might stretch one’s imagination here (and know that I think Satan incapable of creating anything) and see God created Man, and Satan in a parallel way created Consumer. God creates Man from dust through Love, Truth, and Beauty, whereas Satan grinds Man into Consumer through hatred, greed and pride.
What is going on here?
In this holiday, there is no glow of satisfaction with “enough,” with blessings already bestowed. Instead, we have competition, “deal”, a glorious celebration of procuring next-year’s trash!
Save! Save! Save!
10%
20%
30%
Spend! Spend! Spend!
70%
80%
90%
Billions more than last year! A great beginning to the Holiday Season! Not Christmas, but “Holiday”. Trees, decorations, toys, cars diamonds. How much do you love! Put your money where your heart is! Diamonds are forever! Show her how much you love her, buy her a car! Perhaps, he needs a new assault rifle, firearms help to keep the season bright! Last minute shopping. Cyber Monday—-Now you don’t even have to interact with people who get in your way, bug, and bother you, and buy what you want before you can get there! You may also break a heel stomping on them as you stampede to get through the doors at a Black Friday grand opening! What a waste of ammunition to have to shoot that sad sack shopper because he beat you to the last “Call of Duty” video game. Amidst the cries of the trampled and the drumbeat of a 35-round clip, we can all sing God Bless America and chant “keep dem caravan criminals from comin’ in here an’ takin’ what’s mine!”
Stop it! You. Me. That guy over there. Stop it!
A Lie from the Father of Lies
This is all a lie. We are being tricked. Having bought in we see no way out. People will hate us if we don’t spend, spend, spend. Do we not see how sad this is? How empty? How insecure? How shallow? A person’s life and love are not enough, they must bear manufactured goods. Hand-drawn pictures are okay from the very young as they have not money, but for mature people who know the value of money relative to value of a human being you had better buy something and it better be good or else. . .shame, contempt, and your love is meaningless, worthless, and lacking. Disappointment. Division. A broken relationship.
Satan laughs aloud: YES! My children fight, argue, spend. Buy the bobble made by a starving slave and use it to barter for love! Love is nothing more than a commodity to be purchased. GOD is for salvation, but MONEY is for everything else. Don’t worry, if you forget Him he will forgive you. Remember all those years ago? Way back when, when you “accepted Jesus into your heart?” Good enough. Get buying! Get stomping! Get shooting! Wear that scapular. Chant that chaplet. After all, “It’s all good”.
Reclaim Our Gratitude, Reclaim Our Relationship with God.
I think this is easy. Simply, Stop. Let us not do it anymore. Ask for nothing for Christmas. I do not mean to say, don’t ask for anything, I mean ask for “nothing.” Ask those who love you, as a gift to you, to not spend money on you this Christmas. Tell them if they must satiate the need to equate their love of you with amount spent, beg them to give that money to the local food bank, energy assistance program for the poor, Catholic Relief Service, church poor box, pretty much anything that does not contribute to the exploitative success of Wall Street or its brother organizations.
We are free beings. Let us remember we are all created in the image of God. Living icons. This is also true of everyone we encounter. Let us celebrate this gift by giving of ourselves and accepting them, in their being alone, as the greatest gift we could ever receive. Love is the only thing of lasting value, and you want to know a secret: Love is the one thing you can take with you when you die.
Let us pray:
Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary we pray:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, save me, I am Yours.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, pray that I be given the strength to live a holy life, and to grow in goodness and grace.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on us sinners. Pray for our conversion Lord, so that all souls may go to Heaven.
Amen.
May Almighty God bless you; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
(C) Copyright 24 November 2018
For Lourdes Sake 